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YALE STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
ALBERT S. COOK, Editor 

XIX 

CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY 
IN SHAKESPEARE 



BY 

ROBERT KILBURN ROOT, Ph.D. 

Instructor in English in Yale University 



A Thesis presented to the Philosophical Faculty of Yale University 

in Candidacy for the Degree of 

Doctor of Philosophy 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1903 






THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGH6SS, 

Two Copies Receivoe 

SEP 2 1903 

Copyright tnUy 

CUSfe Oy XXc. No 

COPY B. 



Copyright, 1903 

by 

Robert Kilburn Root 



TO 

PROFESSOR ALBERT S. COOK 

IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS GENEROUS HELP 



PREFACE 

The term classical mythology has been taken to include 
not only the divinities of the ancient religion and such tales 
as those of Ovid's Metamorphoses, but also the heroes of 
the Trojan war and the personages of the ^neid. In a 
number of cases, such, for example, as Fortune, Nature, and 
Fame, it has not been easy to draw a hard and fast line 
between mythology and mere philosophical personification. 
In Part First, where the myths are discussed severally, I 
have been inclined to include such subjects, while excluding 
them as doubtful from the generalizations of Part Second 
and the Introduction. 

Any work in the field of Shakespearian commentary must, 
of course, be a gleaning of the ears left unnoticed by earlier 
commentators ; but in my corner of the field I have found 
the gleaning richer than I expected. Though the great 
mass of Shakespearian scholarship makes it impossible to 
say with certainty that any given point has not been noticed, 
I have found that after free use of the Variorum edition 
of 1 82 1 and, as far as it has been completed, of the Variorum 
edition of Dr. Furness, there was still plenty of room for 
original investigation. In this investigation the mythologi- 
cal dictionaries of Roscher, Pauly-Wissowa, and Smith have 
been of constant assistance. The Globe edition of Shake- 
speare has been used for quotation and reference ; but in 
giving a list of citations I have followed the approximately 
chronological order of the plays in the Leopold edition, 
though always putting the doubtful plays at the end of the 
list. In citing Shakespearian plays, I have adopted the 
abbreviations of Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon. The 
citations from Golding's Ovid are from the edition of 1575. 
The editions of Ovid and Vergil by Merkel and Ribbeck 
respectively have been used in citations from those authors. 

July 21, 1903. 



>;> 



YALE STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
ALBERT S. COOK, Editor 

XIX 

CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY 
IN SHAKESPEARE 



BY 

ROBERT KILBURN ROOT, Ph.D. 

Instructor in English in Yale University 



A Thesis presented to the Philosophical Faculty of Yale University 

in Candidacy for the Degree of 

Doctor of Philosophy 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1903 



INTRODUCTION 



Every student of European culture is compelled, sooner 
or later, to attempt a definition of those complex and inter- 
woven, yet none the less clearly divergent, tendencies which 
we call Medievalism and the Renaissance. All definition is 
a perilous undertaking : one constructs his laborious formula 
only to be greeted with the mocking laugh of some forgotten 
aspect ; and the definition must be begun anew. Especially 
is this true in the particular problem of definition I have 
suggested : if one bases his definition of Mediaevalism on 
Dante and the cathedral-builders, how is he to include the 
contradictory phenomenon of the French fabliau, and its 
satyr train of goliards and jongleurs? The maker of 
definitions is sure to find his course bound in shallows and 
in miseries until he recognizes that the terms Medisevalism 
and Renaissance do not stand so much for two periods of 
history as for two tendencies, two hostile forces, which in 
half-hearted truce or open warfare have always coexisted, 
and must always coexist, in the heart of man, and conse- 
quently in his literature and art. In the thirteenth century 
Medisevalism had the upper hand; in the sixteenth, its 
enemy insulted over it. Without risking an inclusive defini- 
tion, one may say that Mediaeval art has its gaze fixed 
primarily on the spiritual, that of the Renaissance on the 
sensuous. Medisevalism proclaims that the eternal things 
of the spirit are alone worth while ; the Renaissance declares 
that man's life consists, if not in the abundance of the 
things he possesses, at any rate in the abundance and variety 
of the sensations he enjoys. 

When Petrarch and the scholars of the succeeding genera- 
tions rediscovered the half-forgotten monuments of classical 
antiquity, they seemed to find authority for this rich life of 



2 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

the senses ; in the mythology of the ancients, as it glows 
resplendent in the pages of Ovid, they found the Credo 
and the Gloria in Excelsis of the new life. Could they have 
lighted first on Homer and Pindar and the Attic Three, 
things might have been different ; but it was Ovid, the 
brilliant, the sensuous, least spiritual of the ancients, who 
became the poet's poet, the painter's poet, the dominant 
influence in the art of the Renaissance. It is the mythology 
of Ovid that crowds the pages of Boccaccio and Chaucer; 
it is the divinities of Ovid that elbow the virgins and saints 
in every picture-gallery of Europe ; it was to Ovid that 
Shakespeare, called of some the 'child of the Renaissance,' 
turned for the classical allusions which the taste of the 
sixteenth century demanded in its literature. 

It has been the aim of the present study to collect and 
examine systematically the very numerous allusions to classi- 
cal mythology in the authentic works of Shakespeare, with 
the purpose of determining the sources from which he drew 
his acquaintance with the matter, the conception which he 
entertained of it, and the extent to which it became a vital 
element in his art. It is the purpose of this introduction 
to summarize the more important results of the study, and 
to frame certain generalizations on the basis of the facts 
detailed in the pages which follow. 

In considering the problem of sources, it is necessary to 
distinguish first of all between the definite, detailed allusions, 
such as imply a more or less accurate acquaintance with the 
myth alluded to, and the vaguer, more general allusions, such 
as might be made by any fairly intelligent man, though he 
had never read a line of the classics. For example, a mere 
mention of the labors of Hercules indicates no real acquaint- 
ance with classic myth ; but an allusion to the death of 
Hercules with mention of the poisoned shirt of Nessus and 
the fate of the page Lichas, lodged by his master on the 
horns of the moon,^ is possible only to one who has read 

' Ant. 4. 12. 43-5. 



Introduction 3 

a detailed account of the fable, svich as that given by Ovid 
or Seneca. Though the number of these definite allusions 
in Shakespeare is smaller than that of the vague ones, they 
are yet sufficiently numerous to admit of satisfactory con- 
clusions. Of these allusions for which a definite source can 
be assigned, it will be found that an overwhelming majority 
are directly due to Ovid, while the remainder, with few 
exceptions, are from Vergil. The vaguer allusions, though 
admitting of no confident attribution, are nearly all of such 
a character that they might have been drawn from Ovid or 
Vergil. In other words, a man familiar with these two 
authors, and with no others, would be able to make all the 
mythological allusions contained in the undisputed works of 
Shakespeare, barring some few exceptions to be considered 
later. Throughout, the influence of Ovid is at least four 
times as great as that of Vergil ; the whole character of 
Shakespeare's mythology is essentially Ovidian. 

Of the particular poems of Ovid, it is but natural that 
the Metamorphoses should furnish Shakespeare with the 
bulk of his mythology. With nearly all of the important 
episodes of the poem, with each of the fifteen books, save 
perhaps the twelfth and fifteenth, his familiarity is clearly 
demonstrable. The highly dramatic quality of the Heroides 
must surely have made them congenial reading, and allu- 
sions to the myth of Ariadne, to Leda, and to the dream 
of Hecuba that she had brought forth a firebrand, indicate 
that the work was not unfamiliar. In the Taming of the 
Shrczv there is even a direct Latin quotation from the first 
epistle ;^ but the uncertain extent of Shakespeare's author- 
ship in this play makes the bit of evidence less conclusive. 
From the Fasti Shakespeare certainly drew much of his 
Rape of Lucrece,^ and to the same work is probably to be 
referred an allusion to Arion on the dolphin's back in 
Twelfth Night. From the Amorcs is taken the Latin motto 

^ Shr. 3. I. 28-9. Cf. Her. 1. 33-4. 

■I had reached this conclusion independently before reading the 
convincing examination of the sources of the poem by Wilhelm Ewig 
in Angl. 22. 



4 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

prefixed to Venus and Adonis; while the Ars Amatoria may 
explain Shakespeare's acquaintance with the intrigue of 
Mars and Venus, and Juliet's statement: 'At lovers' per- 
juries, they say, Jove laughs.'^ The only positive evidence 
of indebtedness to the Tristia is found in a mention of Medea 
and Absyrtus in the doubtfully authentic // Henry VI. 
^ Sharply contrasted with the frequency and variety of 
Shakespeare's references to Ovid is the comparative paucity 
and narrow scope of his Vergilian allusion. Perhaps the 
restraint and delicacy of Vergil's art are less in harmony 
with the temper of the Elizabethan age ; perhaps his story 
lends itself less readily to casual allusion. Only three 
episodes of the ^neid seem to have made a deep impression 
on Shakespeare — the account of the fall of Troy with the 
stratagem of Sinon and the death of Priam, the grief of the 
forsaken Dido, and the infernal machinery of Vergil's 
Hades — episodes all of them which savor more or less of 
the sensational, and thus approach the prevailing taste of 
Shakespeare's day. Shakespeare is not content, however, 
with merely selecting sensational episodes ; he sets to work 
deliberately to heighten the sensationalism. The truth of 
this statement is at once apparent if one compares the 
account of Priam's death in the player's speech in Hamlet 
with the lines of the second book of the ^neid on which it 
is founded ;- but since Shakespeare's authorship of these 
lines has been disputed, it may be proved by an equally 
characteristic example from the Merchant of Venice. 
Lorenzo says : 

The moon shines bright 

In such a night 

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand 
Upon the wild sea banks, and waft her love 
To come again to Carthage." 

^ Rom. 2. 2. 92-3. Cf. Art. i. 633, but see s. v. Jupiter. As bear- 
ing on Shakespeare's acquaintance with the poem, compare Lucen- 
tio's words in Shr. 4. 2. 8: 'I read that I profess, the Art to Love.' 

' Cf. infra s. v. Priam. 

"Merch. 5. i. 9-12. 



Introduction 5 

Vergil's Dido is left disconsolate at Carthage; but for this 
particular scene the ^neid may be searched in vain. So 
essentially un-Vergilian is it, that Matthew Arnold quotes 
the lines in his Essay on Celtic Literature as an example of 
what he is pleased to call 'natural magic,' and which he 
attributes to the Celtic influence on English literature. One 
need not, however, go to the Celts for this particular pas- 
sage : it is closely imitated from the tenth epistle of Ovid's 
Heroides, where Ariadne, discovering the flight of Theseus, 
goes down by moonlight to the wild rocky shore of her 
island, and after calling in vain for her love, binds her white 
veil to a long wand, and waves it above her head, that 
'though he hear not, he may at least perceive her with his 
eyes.' Chaucer has adapted these lines in his legend of 
Ariadne,^ and it is of course possible that Shakespeare read 
them there; but wherever read, they appealed to him as 
Ovid always appealed. The instance is a striking illustra- 
tion of the essentially Ovidian character of Shakespeare's 
mythology. 

Of Latin influence other than that of Ovid and Vergil 
there is very little trace. It might have been expected that 
the dramas of Seneca, dealing, man}^ of them, with mytho- 
logical subjects, and teeming with mythological allusion, 
would be found responsible for some of Shakespeare's 
references ; for they were popular in the Elizabethan era, 
and available in English translation. But of such influence 
I have discovered but two possible instances, neither of 
which is conclusive." Now and then, too, one is tempted 
to discover a trace of Horace or Martial ; but the instances 
are very rare and far from convincing. 

But what part do the Greek poets play ? Shakespeare has 
left no sonnet to tell us how he felt on first looking into 
Chapman's Homer ; but that he did look into it is proved 
by the fact that several incidents in Troiliis and Cressida 
are founded on the Iliad, and that in thrfee or four instances 

'^Legend of Good Women 1185 fif. 

^ Cf. infra, s. v. Hercules. See also Cunlifife, The Influence of 
Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, London, 1893. 



6 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

a mythological allusion must be referred to the same source.^ 
That he found in it no undiscovered sea of thought, that its 
influence on his conception of classical mythology was all 
but nothing, the exceeding paucity of such allusions abund- 
antly indicates. Of any other Greek influence there is not 
the slightest hint. Mr. John Churton Collins, in a series 
of articles in the Fortnightly for 1903, has tried to show 
that Shakespeare was familiar with the Greek dramatists 
in Latin translation. At the time of going to press, the 
last article of his series has not yet appeared ; but in the 
articles already published I find no evidence sufficient to 
overthrow my own belief that he was totally unacquainted 
with them. It is at any rate certain that he no where alludes 
to any of the characters or episodes of the Greek drama, 
that they exerted no influence whatever on his conception 
of mythology.^ The all but total disregard of the gene- 
alogies and family relationships of the divinities, which 
appear so prominently in Spenser and Milton, shows that 
Shakespeare could not have been familiar with Hesiod. 

I do not propose to enter the lists of those who since 
the days of Farmer have disputed back and forth whether 
or not Shakespeare was able to read Ovid and Vergil in 
the original Latin,^ A number of verbal correspondences 
between Shakespeare and Golding's Ovid have been noticed 
by the critics, and my own studies have added materially to 
the list.* That he was familiar with this excellent version 
of the Metamorphoses is beyond question : but that he also 
read the poem in the original is in the highest degree prob- 

^ Cf. infra s. v. Mars. 

^ Further on I shall notice instances of such allusion in Tit., which 
I do not regard as Shakespeare's. 

^ An admirable summary of the arguments is given by Mr. J. 
Churton Collins in the articles referred to above. See also the 
articles by Professor Baynes called What Shakespeare Learned at 
School, Eraser's Magazine, New Series, Vol. 21. 

* Instances of such correspondence more or less convincing are 
noticed frequently in the pages which follow. See for examples 
s. V. Actseon, Adonis, Argonauts, Cimmerian, Diana (Hecate), 
Hiems, Jupiter, Phaeton, Proteus. 



Introduction 7 

able. As regards Vergil, I have found one passage that 
seems to indicate acquaintance with the translation of Phaer/ 
and another in which the original must have been consulted.^ 
After all, the important point for this investigation is that 
Shakespeare knew Ovid and Vergil, not that he read them 
in this language or that.^ 

It may be objected, however, that the stories of Vergil 
and Ovid are common property, that they appear in countless 
reworkings and paraphrases — in Chaucer, in Gower, in 
Spenser. Could not Shakespeare have learned his mythol- 
ogy entirely at second-hand from English authors? That 
in certain instances his acquaintance with a particular myth 
was acquired in this way is more than probable, and in the 
following pages I have frequently suggested an indebted- 
ness of this sort ; but that the whole, or even the main part, 
of his mythology was so acquired is utterly improbable. It 
must be remembered that we have the most complete evi- 
dence that Shakespeare was intimately familiar with the 
Metamorphoses in Golding's version. It is equally certain 
that in composing his Rape of Lncreee the poet had recourse 
to Ovid's Fa^ti and to Livy, as well as to Chaucer, and per- 

^ Cf. s. V. Iris. " Cf. s. V. Sinon. 

' An examination of the articles dealing with the several myths 
will show that Shakespeare's knowledge of the myths, though fre- 
quently scanty, is in general substantially correct. Only four instances 
of actual error have come to my notice : the confusion about Althaea's 
firebrand in H4B 2. 2. 93, 95 ; the idea that Cerberus was killed by 
Hercules expressed in LLL 5. 2. 593 ; the use of the word 'Hes- 
perides' as the name of the garden where grew the golden apples, 
with the idea that Hercules gathered the apples himself, LLL 4. 3. 
341; Per. I. I. 2y, Cor. 4. 6. 99; and the famous mention of Juno's 
swans in As i. 3. jy. To this list may be added the mistaken form 
'Ariachne' of Troil. 5. 2. 152, and the somewhat confused notions 
entertained of Lethe and Acheron. Other errors, such as making 
Delphi an island, Wint. 3. i. 2; considering the sun as Aurora's 
lover ; and thinking of Perseus as mounted on the winged steed 
Pegasus, are hardly to be laid to Shakespeare's account, since they 
are all shared by his contemporaries. 



8 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

haps Gower.^ It is, moreover, inherently so improbable that 
Shakespeare, with his quick and eager intelligence, should 
have been content to rest ignorant of Ovid and Vergil, that 
the burden of proof may fairly be left with those who may 
choose to assert his ignorance.^ 



II 

If, then, Shakespeare learned his mythology mainly from 
Ovid, what conception did he entertain of it? He found in 
Ovid, and in classical mythology as a whole, what all the 
Renaissance found before him : a treasure-house of fascina- 
ting story wrought out in rich magnificence of detail, all but 
void of any deep spiritual significance. Graceful ornament 
and brilliant imagery he found in abundance; but for the 
expression of his profound meditations on the great mys- 
teries which round our little life he found small aid. In so 
far as Shakespeare is a 'child of the Renaissance,' a reveler 
in the beauty of external form, he finds Ovid congenial 
reading; in so far as he represents the deeper spirit which 
I have called Mediaevalism, he finds Ovid, and the s)'stem 
he learned from Ovid, quite inadequate. Shakespeare is 
essentially religious ; Ovid is as essentially irreligious.^ 

That this assertion is no mere a priori inference may easily 
be shown by an analysis of the mythological allusions in 
a few representative plays. I shall first show that even in 
his earlier period, when the influence of Ovid was strongest 
upon him, Shakespeare felt that mythological allusion was 
out of keeping with the highest seriousness of thought and 
passion ; and, secondly, that his attitude toward mythology 

^ See the work of Wilhelm Ewig in Angl. 22, referred to above. 

■ Caxton's RecuycU, though it furnished Shakespeare with many 
hints for his Troilus and Cressida, has not, so far as I can discover, 
supplied him with material for a single allusion. 

Tor an able exposition of the way in which under different con- 
ditions a modern poet has made classical m>i;hology subservient to 
the expression of deep religious truth, see The Classical Mythology 
of Milton's English Poems, by C. G. Osgood, New York, 1900. 



Introduction 9 

underwent a steady development as his life advanced. The 
first point may be quickly proved from Merchant of Venice 
and Romeo and Jidiet. Though the first of these plays 
abounds in mythological allusions, not a single instance 
of such allusion is to be found in the great trial scene of 
Act IV. Of the 25 mythological allusions in Romeo and 
Juliet, all but 5 occur in the first two acts ; 4 are in Act 
III, leaving one allusion to be spoken by the courtly Paris 
in Act IV, and none at all for Act V. As the tragedy 
darkens, as the seriousness deepens, mythology weakens 
and disappears. From Hamlet, too, may be drawn further ^ 
corroboration of this tendency. Hamlet as a student of the 
university, a scholar and thinker, alludes fourteen times to 
classic myth: when he wishes to dilate on the excellencies 
of his dead father, he is ready with comparisons to the 
curls of Hyperion, to the front of Jove, the 'station of the 
herald Mercury' ; his mother of a month ago, weeping over 
her dead husband, he scornfully compares to Niobe, all" tears ; 
he fears that the spirit which appeared to him may have 
been a damned ghost, and his own imaginations 'as foul 
as Vulcan's stithy.' But it is immediately noticeable that 
in his deeper, more serious speeches, these allusions do not 
occur, and that in the more harrowing scenes of the last 
two acts they all but wholly cease. 

If the Ovidian mythology is excluded from the more 
serious portions of Romeo and Juliet and the Merchant of 
Venice, we should expect to find its influence steadily 
diminishing as Shakespeare's art becomes more profound; 
and this is indeed the case, but the change is too significant 
to be dismissed with a mere statement. In the dedication 
to the first edition of Venus and Adonis (1593), Shakespeare 
describes it as the first heir of his invention; and though 
these words may not justify us in considering the poem 
absolutely the first of his ventures, we are none the less safe 
in placing it among the earliest of his works. Founded on 
two Ovidian myths, that of Adonis and that of Salmacis, 
the poem is in subject-matter and treatment the most 



lo Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

essentially Ovidian of Shakespeare's works. In the dramas, 
however, Ovid's influence is more marked a little later. In 
the earliest of the plays, such as Comedy of Errors, Tzvo 
Gentlemen of Verona, and the first of the histories, the num- 
ber of allusions is never more than six or eight.^ It is in 
the Merchant of Venice that Ovidian allusion is most happily 
employed. Of the 28 allusions, 13 are detailed, and several 
are highly elaborate. Of the detailed allusions, 10 are 
to Ovidian story, and embrace such subjects as Orpheus, 
Midas, Argus, Thisbe, the rescue of Hesione, Hercules and 
his page Lichas ; to the story of Medea and Jason there are 
three separate allusions. It is to be noticed, however, that 
the divinities are seldom referred to. The spirit in which 
mythology is employed is best exhibited by quoting the 
familiar lines which open the fifth act : 

Lor. The moon shines bright : in such a night as this, 
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees 
And they did make no noise, in such a night 
Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls 
And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents, 
Where Cressid lay that night. 
Jcs. In such a night 

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew 
And saw the lion's shadow ere himself 
And ran dismayed away. 

Lor. In such a night 

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand 
Upon the wild sea banks and waft her love 
To come again to Carthage. 
Jes. In such a night 

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs 
That did renew old iEson. 

It is in such graceful and altogether charming embellish- 
ment that the classical mythology appears in the earlier 
plays. 

^Love's Labor's Lost is an exception to this statement; but I am 
inclined to think that the abundance of allusion in this play is due 
to the revision which it received in 1598, and is therefore to be 
assigned to the later period. 



Introduction ii 

I cannot better show the change which now comes over 
the spirit of this classical allusion than by quoting in close 
proximity to these lines the following speech of Rosalind in 
As You Like. It: 

No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand 
years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his 
own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dashed 
out with a Grecian club ; yet he did what he could to die before, and 
he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived 
many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been 
for a hot midsummer night ; for, good youth, he went but forth to 
wash him in the Hellespont and being taken with a cramp was 
drowned : and the foolish chroniclers of that age found it was 'Hero 
of Sestos.' But these are all lies : men have died from time to time 
and worms have eaten them, but not for love.^ 

Instead of graceful, serious allusion, we have delicate rail- 
lery ; to the clear common-sense of Rosalind the heroes of 
the mythographers are but an idle jest. Nor is Rosalind 
peculiar in this attitude ; Celia, Touchstone, and Jaques all 
furnish examples of the same treatment. When we add that 
in // Henry IV, the Merry Wives, and Miieh Ado, written 
all of them at about the same time as As Yon Like It, the 
mythological allusions are of the same character, or even 
more broadly humorous, that of the 30 allusions in Mnch 
Ado 25 are playful or scoffing, we are safe in affirming 
that Shakespeare's attitude has changed, that he has recog- 
nized the insincerity of the Ovidian system, and finds in it 
only the miaterial for a jest. I would not be understood 
to say that this change is either sudden or complete. Even 
in the Merchant of Venice may be foun4 three instances of 
humorous allusion in the speeches of Launcelot Gobbo, and 
in Midsummer Night's Dream we have the deliciovts bur- 
lesque of an Ovidian story in the play of the mechanicals ; 
while there are still several instances of the graceful, serious 
allusion in As You Like It and Tzvelfth Night. But the 
relative proportion of the serious anl playful allusions in 
the plays of the two periods has been startlingly reversed: 

'As 4. I. 94-108. 



12 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

in the Merchant of Venice there are 3 playful allusions to 
25 serious, in Much Ado ^ serious to 25 playful. 

Having first turned the myths of Ovid into a jest, Shake- 
speare's next step was to exclude them in large measure 
from his plays. In Hamlet they are retained, as I noticed 
earlier, to indicate the academic tendencies of Hamlet's 
thought — though to be sure it is Vergil rather than the less 
serious Ovid who seems to be most in Shakespeare's mind; 
but in Julius Ccusar, written in 1601, there are but 5 
allusions, none of them Ovidian : in Measure for Measure 
there are but 2, in Othello 11, in Macbeth 8, in Lear but 
5, When these numbers are compared with those given 
for the earlier plays, their significance is apparent. Equally 
significant is the character of the few allusions which remain. 
Here we find neither the graceful ornament of the earlier 
dramas nor the playful humor of the period which follows ; 
we find rather a groping after the deeper meaning of the 
myth. Of the 8 allusions in Macbeth, for example, all but 
one are to the more terrible or destructive aspects of ancient 
religion : Hecate appears on the stage as queen of the 
witches, and Macbeth makes two independent allusions to 
her as the spirit of darkness, while Acheron, the Gorgon, 
and perhaps the Harpies, complete the mythology of horror. 
In Othello, 6 of the 11 allusions are spoken by Othello 
himself. These have to do with the larger, grander con- 
ceptions of mythology — with Olympus, Jove the thunderer, 
Diana as a type of chastity, the prophetic fury of the Sibyl, 
Promethean fire. Especially characteristic of Othello's 
mythology are the lines in which he meditates the death 
of Desdemona: 

But once put out thy light, 
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, 
I know not where is that Promethean heat 
That can thy light relume.^ 

lago employs mythology in a way equally accordant with 
his character: a conventional allusion to his muse, a dis- 

^Oth. 5. 2. 10-13. 



Introduction 13 

agreeable reference to the erotic myths about that Jove whom 
Othello thinks of as thimderer, and an oath by the double- 
faced Janus.^ 

It is this striving after a deeper meaning or greater appro- 
priateness which marks the allusions in the plays of the 
latest period. The number of allusions is as great as in the 
plays of the earlier period, and the substance of them is 
still to be attributed to Ovid or Vergil, but instead of the 
fables of Ovid we find rather his divinities, standing as 
types of the great forces of nature or of the great moral 
forces in the life of man. Of this usage Cymbeline may 
be taken to furnish the type. If we exclude from considera- 
tion the elaborate masque in Act V, the authenticity of which 
has been doubted, and also the incidental references to Jove 
which merely mark the pagan background of the play, we 
find 31 mythological allusions. Of these about 75 per cent, 
have to do with the greater divinities, while Ovidian allusion 
in the narrower sense consists of single references to the 
tale of Tereus, and to the death of Hecuba (from the thir- 
teenth book of the Metamorphoses). Diana appears three 
times as patroness of chastity, and twice as huntress; 
Phoebus or Titan is three times mentioned as sun-god ; and 
nature-myth appears also in references to Night with her 
dragon-yoke, and to Neptune. Venus is mentioned as a 
type of beauty ; and Mercury, Mars, Jove, and Minerva also 
furnish types of physical excellence. From the Troy-story 
we have ^neas and Sinon as types of falseness, Ajax as 
a type of strength, and Thersites of base cowardice. In 
general, then, the myths appear not in explicit allusion, but 
as types of qualities, physical or moral.^ 

* See also Lear's words to Cordelia, Lr. 4. 7. 45-8, quoted below. 

* One may notice that, of the divinities, Cupid is mentioned but 5 
times after 1601. 



14 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 



III 

I have tried to establish two main points : first, that with 
few exceptions Shakespeare's allusions to classical mythol- 
ogy have to do with myths, the substance of which may be 
found in Ovid or Vergil ; secondly, that his employment 
of these allusions is clearly different at different periods of 
his work. If these conclusions are accepted, we gain from 
the first a new sort of internal evidence as to the Shake- 
spearian authorship of a disputed play or portion of a play ; 
from the second a new sort of internal evidence for deter- 
mining the date of composition of a play known to be 
Shakespeare's. I shall now consider these tests in some 
detail. 

Before applying the test of authenticity to any definite 
case, it must be clearly understood what the test is capable 
of proving, and what it cannot prove. Though it may offer 
corroborative evidence, it cannot prove Shakespeare's author- 
ship of any play or portion of a play. If the mythological 
allusions in a disputed play agree never so closely in matter 
and in manner with those in the poet's undisputed works, 
the most that we can affirm is that Shakespeare may have 
been its author. Thus, for example, it has long been subject 
of dispute to what extent Shakespeare is responsible for the 
Taming of the Shrew. An examination of the mythology 
of the play shows 13 allusions, of which 9 are to be traced 
to Ovid, I to Vergil, while 3 are too vague to admit of 
attribution. There is no allusion which Shakespeare might 
not have made, and the character of the allusions is such as 
we should expect in a Shakespearian play written at about 
the same time as the Merchant of Venice. In the case of 
this play, then, the test proves that Shakespeare may have ' 
written the whole play; it lends indeed some probability to 
such an ascription ; but it is totally unable to prove that he 
did write it. If, on the other hand, a play contains allusions 
to myths which are never referred to in the unquestioned 
plays, the knowledge of which could only have been acquired 



Introduction 15 

from authors to whom Shakespeare is never indebted, the 
assumption is strong that the play in question is not his 
work. This may best be illustrated from Titus Andronicus, 
the Shakespearian authorship of which has long been 
doubted.^ 

One is first of all impressed by the extraordinary number 
of the allusions. There are 53 in all, a number equaled 
among Shakespeare's authentic plays only in Troilns and 
Cressida, which belongs to a much later period, and in sharp 
contrast to the 6 references of the Comedy of Errors, the 
8 of Two Gentlemen of Verona, and the 5, 6, and 8 of the 
three earliest histories.^ One is next impressed by the fact 
that a large proportion of the allusions are more definite 
and detailed than Shakespeare usually exhibits, almost giv- 
ing the impression that the author had his Ovid or Vergil 
open before him as he wrote f 14 of the references are clearly 

^ The present state of critical opinion is summed up as follows by 
Frederick Boas in Shakespeare and his Predecessors, 1899 : 'The 
external evidence is entirely in favor of the play being by Shake- 
speare. It was included by Heminge and Condell in the first folio, 
and it is mentioned by Meres in 1598. It dates almost certainly 
from 1587 or 1588, for in the introduction to Bartholomew} Fair, 
1614, Ben Jonson declares that any man "who will swear Jeronimo 
or Andronicus are the best plays yet, shows that his judgment hath 
stood still these five and twenty or thirty years." Thus external 
evidence pronounces that Titus Andronicus was written by Shake- 
speare immediately after leaving Stratford, and the chief German 
critics (e. g. Kreyssig, Ulrici, and Hertzberg) accept this view. 
English commentators, however, almost without exception, have 
refused to recognize the play as genuinely Shakespearian, and have 
at most admitted that it was touched up by the poet. A stage tradi- 
tion dating from 1687 affords slender support to this theory, which, 
otherwise, rests purely upon aesthetic considerations arising out of 
the nature of the plot and its treatment.' 

Brandes accepts the play without reservation, Sidney Lee with 
some unwillingness. 

^ I have already had occasion to notice that most of the 38 allu- 
sions in Love's Labor's Lost are of a character to indicate that they 
belong to the revision which the play received in 1598. 

' Perhaps, though, one should not lay undue weight on this point, 
since Shakespeare, if it was he who wrote the play, could not have 
been far advanced from his school-days. 



1 6 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

due to Ovid, and 14 as clearly to the poet of Mantua. Of 
much more significance is the fact that the author of Titus 
seems in several instances to show an acquaintance with 
the Greek drama.^ 

Thus in i. i. 379-381 Marcus says: 

The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax 
That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son 
Did graciously plead for his funerals. 

Shakespeare's knowledge of Ajax, as displayed in the 
authentic plays, was obtained mainly from the account of 
his dispute with Ulysses over the arms of Achilles, given 
by' Ovid in Met. 13. Though Caxton and Chapman's 
Homer furnished him with the main incidents of the action 
of Ajax in Troihis and Cressida, even here the character of 
the Telamonian hero is that given by Ovid ;- and though 
Ajax is seven times mentioned outside of Troihis, only once 
does Shakespeare refer to any event connected with him 
which is not given by Ovid.^ Where, then, did the author 
of Titus learn that the incensed Greeks were unwilling to 
grant burial to Ajax, until persuaded by the eloquence of his 
rival Ulysses? I can only say that the episode may easily 
be found in the Ajax of Sophocles,* but that I have looked 
in vain for any mention of the incident in other authors, 
Latin or English, whom Shakespeare may reasonably be 
supposed to have read. Similarly, there are two allusions 
in Titus to the madness of Hecuba which seem closer to 
the Hecuba of Euripides than to the account of Hecuba's 
madness given by Ovid.^ Lastly, we have an allusion to 
Prometheus 'tied to Caucasus' ; and though it would be 
unwise to assert from a reference to so familiar an idea 

^ Cf. supra, p. 6. 

* See s. V. Ajax. 

'The single exception is found in LLL 4. 3. 7, where there is a 
vague allusion to Ajax killing sheep in his madness, a detail which 
might have been learned from the Satires of Horace. Cf. s. v. Ajax. 

*L1. 1332 seq. 

° See s. V. Hecuba. 



Introduction 17 

that the author had read ^schylus, it is noteworthy that, in 
the authentic plays, Shakespeare knows of Prometheus only 
as the fashioner of the human race, breathing the fire of 
life into the images which he has formed. When one adds 
that in six passages of Titus are found mythological names 
which, though perfectly possible to Shakespeare, are as a 
matter of fact never mentioned in the authentic plays,^ the 
evidence becomes strong that Shakespeare is not the author.- 

It is with a somewhat less assertive confidence that I 
advance my second theory, that the mythological allusions 
in an accepted play of Shakespeare furnish internal evidence 
for determining its date of composition. Internal evidence 
in these questions is always a matter deep and dangerous, 
for it presupposes that the sacred river of your author's 
intellectual and spiritual progress flows steadily onward, 
with no sudden rapids or capricious backward swirls; it 
assumes rather presumptuously that the caverns through 
which it runs are measurable to man after all. Still, if I 
am right in the analysis I have made of Shakespeare's atti- 
tude toward mythology at dififerent periods of his work, it 
ought to be possible to say with some plausibility to what 
period a given play belongs. 

None of Shakespeare's plays has offered more baffling 
problems to the chronologist than Troihis and Cressida. 
Furnivall placed it near the end of what he calls the poet's 
third period, just before Antony and Cleopatra. Fleay, on 
the other hand, assigned a portion of it (i. e. the Troilus 
story) to about 1594, and declared that it was completed by 
another hand in 1599, revised in 1602, and finally rewritten 
by Shakespeare in 1605.^ More recent authorities are 

' Astrasa, the Cimmerians, Cocytus, Enceladus, the House of Fame, 
Pallas. Astrsea is also mentioned in H6A i. 6. 4. 

' See also the discussion of the mythology of the three parts of 
Henry VI on p. 133. 

' Fleay is fond of such elaborate dismemberments. I may add that 
I have examined separately the mythology of the several portions 
into which he divides the play, and fail to find the slightest support 
for his hypothesis. 
2 



1 8 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

inclined to place it in 1601-1602.^ I shall not attempt to 
go into a discussion of the arguments, but shall merely 
analyze the mythology of the play, and consider the evidence 
furnished by it to the question of chronology. 

To begin with, the number of allusions is much larger 
than in any other play. Not only is the whole drama based 
directly on the incidents of the Troy-myth as found in 
Homer, Chaucer, and Caxton, but in the course of the 
dialogue the other myths of classical antiquity are referred 
to with remarkable frequency. If we exclude from con- 
sideration frequent oaths by Jove introduced to indicate the 
pagan setting of the play, we find no less than 56 instances 
of mythological allusion — half as many again as in Antony 
and Cleopatra, which shows the next largest number. 
Nature-myth occurs 1 1 times, always with strict metonymy ; 
Cupid is mentioned 6 times in a half playful, half serious 
way; and the other divinities appear 28 times. There are 
10 allusions to Ovidian fable — Arachne, Argus, Apollo and 
Daphne, Jupiter and Europa, Mars and Venus, Niobe, 
Perseus (twice), Typhon, Cerberus, and Proserpina. Of 
Vergilian origin are references to^ Charon, Styx, and the 
Elysian Fields ; while to Chapman's Homer may be referred 
an allusion to the combat of Mars and Diomed. Sixteen 
of the allusions are humorous. 

If we ask, now, to which of Shakespeare's periods such a 
treatment of mythology belongs, we find that it belongs to 
none of his periods, that it seems to combine the m.anners 
of two periods : that of Much Ado and As You Like It, 
with that of Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus. The 
many proofs of Ovidian influence, the frequent mentions of 
Cupid and Venus, and still more strongly the many 
humorous allusions, point to the earlier period; while the 
large proportion of nature-myths, and the constant mention 
of the greater divinities, could better be explained on the 

^ This is the opinion of the late R. A. Small, who in a dissertation 
on The Stage Quarrel hetzveen Ben Jonson and the So-called Poetas- 
ters, Breslau, 1899, has made a study of the whole question de novo, 
and has given an excellent summary of the preceding views. 



Introduction 19 

hypothesis of the later date. If one had only these incidental 
allusions, the problem would be very baffling; but, for- 
tunately, one has the play as a whole, a detailed, elaborate 
mythological allusion in five acts. To what period can we 
best assign this vast allusion to the myth of Troy? If 
Shakespeare had set himself to treat this subject at the time 
when he wrote the Merchant of Venice, he would have 
clothed it in the rich garment of poetry and romance. 
Recall for a moment those lines of Lorenzo quoted before, 
where Troilus mounts the Troyan walls and sighs for Cressid. 
They are hardly in the spirit of the drama which shows forth 
this same Troilus and Cressid. What, then, of Rosalind's 
playful words in As You Like It? They have been once 
quoted. 

Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he 
did what he could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love. 

That is more nearly in the tone of the drama, yet different 
enough. But suppose the disparaging, bantering spirit in 
which Shakespeare treats his mythology in As You Like It 
and Much Ado carried a little further. Would it not lead 
in all naturalness to the cynical, pitiless scorn with which, 
in Troilus and Cressida, he tears down the topless towers 
of his sorry Ilium? What are his Achilles and Patroclus 
but a reductio ad absurdum of classical heroism ? The play 
should come, then, at the culmination of the period in which 
Shakespeare turned mythology to a jest; and consequently 
I should wish to assign it to a date some year or more later 
than As You Like It, in other words to 1601 or 1602, which 
is the exact date to which Dr. Small would assign it on 
wholly different grounds.^ As further confirmation of this 
date, I would adduce the fact that all the allusions to the 
Troilus-story in the other dramas come before 1602, and 
that six of the seven fall between 1599 and 1602.^ I should 
explain the large number of allusions to the greater divinities 
as an anticipation of the later treatment, showing itself at 

' Op. cit. ^ Cf. s. V. Troilus. 



20 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

the very moment when the old was in its death-throes. Or 
it is just possible that the play may have received some 
revision at a later date. A similar attempt to determine the 
date of Timon of Athens will be found in Part Second. 

IV 

Turning now from matters of chronology and sources, it 
will be interesting to see in what ways Shakespeare incor- 
porates the mythology of the ancients into the texture of 
his poetry. Though his acquaintance with the matter, 
drawn as it was from two or three Latin authors, was so 
limited as to blind him to many of the sublimer aspects of 
mythology, and though at times he seems to have accorded 
it but slight respect, it would be inconceivable that he should 
have failed to find in it much that his genius could turn 
to noble use. 

Most obvious, perhaps, is his use of myth and fable to 
heighten the beauty of his verse by effective simile and 
metaphor. Thus Lucrece, in the first agonies of her dis- 
grace, finds a sad comfort in comparing her unhappiness to 
that of the treacherously entreated Philomel,^ and in scan- 
ning the scenes of woe depicted on the cloth of her chamber- 
wall, lingers over the story of perjured Sinon : 

For even as subtle Sinon here is painted, 

So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild, 

As if with grief or travail he had fainted, 

To me came Tarquin armed; so beguiled 

With outward honesty, but yet defiled 

With inward vice : as Priam him did cherish, 

So did I Tarquin ; so my Troy did perish.'' 

It is in a similar spirit that the unhappy Richard contem- 
plates his own failure : 

Down down I come; like glistering Phaeton, 
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.' 

With less despondency, but with lively sense of peril, Portia 

'Lucr. 1 128 ff. 'Lucr. IS4I-47- ' R2. 3- 3- 178-9- 



Introduction 21 

waits while Bassanio makes his fateful choice. Her words 
show that subtle blending of earnest seriousness and playful 
humor, which is so characteristic of Shakespeare's women: 

Now he goes, 
With no less presence, but with much more love. 
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem 
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy 
To the sea-monster : I stand for sacrifice ; 
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives, 
With bleared visages, come forth to view 
The issue of the exploit. Go, Hercules ! 
Live thou, I live : with much much more dismay 
I view the fight than thou that makest the fray.^ 

Remembering a passage in Vergil, Hamlet is able to express 
all the regal dignity of his murdered father in the lines : 

A station like the herald Mercury 
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill." 

How exquisitely Perdita suggests her own story by a men- 
tion of the lost Proserpina : 

O Proserpina, 
For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall 
From Dis's waggon ! daffodils. 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses, 
That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength.^ 

Again, the whole story of the plain, blunt Ajax, cozened by 
the wily, unscrupulous Ulysses, rises in the mind of Kent 
when he sees himself worsted in words by the despicable 
Oswald : 

None of these rogues and cowards 
But Ajax is their fool.^ 

Frequently the comparison is made in still subtler fashion 

^ Merch. 3. 2. 53-62. - Hml. 3. 4. 58-9. 

'Wint. 4. 4. 116-124. ^Lr. 2. 2. 131-2. 



2 2 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

without explicit mention of the myth referred to. It would 
strike us as incongruous were the serving-man, Adam, to 
refer more definitely to the poisoned shirt of Nessus ; but 
we are aware of no incongruity when, impressed by the fact 
that it is the virtues of Orlando which inflame his brother 
against him, he exclaims : 

O, what a world is this, when what is comely 
Envenoms him that bears it \^ 

Of a similar character is Duke Orsino's veiled allusion to 
the hounds of Actseon : 

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, 
Methought she purged the air of pestilence ! 
That instant was I turn'd into a hart; 
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, 
E'er since pursue me." 

With unspeakable pathos. King Lear awakes from his long 
slumber, and imagining that he is dead and in hell, compares 
himself to Ixion on the wheel : . 

You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave: 
Thou art a soul in bliss ; but I am bound 
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears 
Do scald like molten lead.^ 

I am inclined to think, however, that the aspect of mythol- 
ogy which appealed most deeply to Shakespeare, which he 
most fully and vitally incorporated into his own thoughts, 
is that original aspect of the system which gives a divine 
personality to the great forces of nature. The sun in its 
rising and its setting, the 'gray-eyed dawn' and the 'black- 
browed night' ; the procession of the seasons from 'well- 
apparelled April' to 'old Hiems' with his 'thin and icy 
crown' ; 'Great Neptune's ocean' and the 'mutinous winds' ; 
the crash of Jove's dread thunderbolt — to express his appre- 
ciation of all these, Shakespeare has constant recourse to the 

^As 2. 3. 14-15. =Tw. I. I. 19-23. 'Lr. 4. 7. 45-48. 



Introduction 23 

forms of expression given us by the ancients, or, still more 
significantly, imitates their methods of thought without 
employing their exact terms. How thoroughly in accord 
with the spirit of mythology are Hotspur's words describing 
the fight between Mortimer and Glendower : 

Three times they breathed and three times did they drink, 

Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood; 

Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, 

Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, 

And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank 

Bloodstained with these valiant combatants/ 

Or again the simile in King John 3. i. 23 : 

Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds. 

There is the germ of a whole myth in the lines : 

So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood 
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.^ 

Not only the war of the sea against the shore, but the cease- 
less encounters of the sea and winds, 'old wranglers' (Troil. 
2. 2, 75), takes on a personal aspect: 

Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend 

Which is the mightier.^ 

And in the visitation of the winds, 

Who take the ruffian billows by the top. 

Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them 

With deafening clamor in the slippery clouds.* 

Macbeth suggests^ that the witches may 'untie the winds, 
and let them fight against the churches,' and in another 
passage® calls the winds 'sightless couriers of the air.' 

Plato has told us that it is the work of the gods to bring 
order out of chaos ; and so it is with the most godlike of 
men — philosophers, poets, artists ; it must ever be their glory 
that they know how to transcend the conditions in which they 

^H4A I. 3. 102-107. 'H4B I. I. 62-2,. ^Hml. 4. I. 7-8. 

*H4B 3. I. 21-4. ^4. I. 52-3. 'i. 7. 23. 



24 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

live, to compel these conditions, hostile and discordant, into 
order and fair harmony, to impress the crude and stubborn 
material about them with the divine mark of the spiritual. 
It was so that Shakespeare compelled the conditions placed 
upon him by the dramatic traditions of his day ; it was so, in 
a wider sense, that he took up into himself the rich and varied 
but discordant life of the Renaissance, and gave to it some of 
that order and spiritual harmony which is the glory of the 
greatest of mediaeval art. It is this habit of thought and 
power of soul that seem to me evident in his treatment of 
the classical mythology. He did not know the great mytho- 
graphers of Hellas, and was, in consequence, cut off from 
the sublimer aspects of their system ; but from the mythology 
of Ovid and Vergil he was able to draw the poetic beauties 
which it offers, and while recognizing its limitations, to seek, 
not without success, for the deeper spiritual significance 
which it implies. 



ABBREVIATIONS 



THE PLAYS AND POEMS OF SHAKESPEARE. 



Ado Much Ado About Nothing. 

Alls All's Well That Ends Well. 

Ant Antony and Cleopatra. 

As As You Like It. 

Cks Julius Caesar. 

Cor Coriolanus. 

Cymb. ..CymbeUne. 

Err Comedy of Errors. 

Gent Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

H4A .... Henry IV, Pt. I. 
H4B ....Henry IV, Pt. II. 

Hs Henry V. 

H6A ....Henry VI, Pt. I. 
H6B ....Henry VI, Pt. II. 
H6C ....Henry VI, Pt. III. 

H8 Henry VIII. 

Hml Hamlet. 

K.J. .....King John. 

LLL ....Love's Labor's Lost. 

Lr King Lear. 

Lucr Rape of Lucrece. 



Mcb Macbeth. 

Meas Measure for Measure. 

Merch. ..Merchant of Venice. 

Mids Midsummer Night's Dream. 

Oth Othello. 

Per Pericles. 

Pilgr Passionate Pilgrim. 

R2 Richard II. 

R3 Richard III. 

Rom Romeo and Juliet. 

Shr Taming of the Shrew. 

Sonn Sonnets. 

Tim Timon of Athens. 

Tit Titus Andronicus. 

Tp Tempest. 

Troil Troilus and Cressida. 

Tw Twelfth Night. 

Ven Venus and Adonis. 

Wint Winter's Tale. 

Wiv Merry Wives of Windsor. 



Dir. ...Stage Direction. 



Ind. ...Induction. 



Prol. ...Prologue. 



(These abbreviations are, with slight variations, those used by Schmidt in his 
Shakespeare Lexicon.) 



VERGIL AND OVID. 

JEn Vergil's ^neis. Her. ....Ovid's Heroides. 

Am Ovid's Amores. Met Ovid's Metamorphoses. 

Art Ovid's Ars Amatoria. Pont. ...Ovid's Ex Ponto Epistulas. 

Fasti Ovid's Fasti. Trist. ...Ovid's Tristia. 

Georg. ...Vergil's Georgica. 



PART FIRST 



CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN SHAKESPEARE 

Absyrtus. — H6B 5. 2. 59. See Argonauts. 

Acheron. — See Hades. 

Achilles.— LLL 5. 2. 635; Lucr. 1424; H6B 5. i. 100; Troil. passim. 

Outside of Troil. Achilles is mentioned only three times. 
In LLL he is the antagonist of Hector. In Lucr. he is one 
of the figures in the painting of Troy, and his spear is men- 
tioned. In H6B the spear is mentioned in more detail : 

That gold must round engirt these brows of mine, 
Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear, 
Is able with the change to kill and cure. 

King Telephus was wounded by Achilles' spear and learned 
from the oracle that he could only be cured by him who had 
inflicted the wound. This Achilles accomplished by some 
of the rust from his spear. The primary authority for this 
story is Dictys Cretensis 2. 10 ; but it is alluded to several 
times by Ovid: Met. 12. 112; Trist. 5. 2. 15 ; Pont. 2. 2. 26. 
In Met. 13. 171-72 we read 'Ego Telephon hasta Pugnantem 
domui, victum orantemque refeci.' This Golding renders 
(p. 162b) : 

I did wound 
King Teleph with his speare, and when he lay uppon the ground, 
I was intreated with the speare too heale him safe and sound. 

In Troil. he is a brave and mighty warrior, but excessively 
proud. Agamemnon says that he is 'in self-assumption 
greater than in the note of judgment,' 2. 3. 133. He is 
called 'broad Achilles' in i. 3. 190. Caxton says of him, 
p. 541, 'Achilles was of right grete beaulte/ blonke heeris 
& cryspe graye eyen and grete/ of Amyable sighte/ large 
brestes & brode sholdres grete Armes/ his raynes hyghe 



3© Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

ynowh/ an hyghe man of grete stature/ and had no pareyll 
ne like to hym amonge alle the grekes/ desiryng to fighte/ 
large in yeftes and outerageous in dispense.' His pride 
could have been learned from Chapman's Homer. From 
the same source would come the fact several times mentioned 
in the play that he is son of Thetis. The phrase 'great 
Thetis' son,' 3. 3. 94, is to be found verbatim in Chapman //. 
7 (p. 98). The main features of his action in Troil. are 
taken from Caxton. 

The Myrmidons are mentioned in the nonsense of the 
clown, Feste, in Tw. 2. 3. 29. The name occurs in Caxton 
and Homer. 

Actaeon. — Wiv. 2. i. 122; 3. 2. 44; Tw. i. i. 22; Tit. 2. 3. 63, 70-71. 

The story of Actaeon is told at length in Met. 3. 138-252. 
That Shakespeare had read this passage in Golding's trans- 
lation is proved by Pistol's comparing Master Ford to 'Sir 
Actaeon, with Ringwood at his heels' (Wiv. 2. i. 122). 
Ovid gives the names of all Actseon's hounds. The last in 
the list is Hylactor (1. 224). Golding substitutes English 
dog-names throughout, and 'Hylactor' is represented by 
'Ringwood.' As the last in a long list, it would have the 
best chance of sticking in the reader's memory. 

In the first two and the last of the passages cited above, 
the myth becomes a variation of the ever-recurring horn 
joke. 

A more pleasing adaptation is that of Tw. i. i. 22, where 
Duke Orsino says : 

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, 
Methought she purged the air of pestilence. 
That instant was I turn'd into a hart; 
And my desires, Hke fell and cruel hounds, 
E'er since pursue me. 

The conceit may have been borrowed from the fifth sonnet 
of Daniel's Delia (1592). 



Actceon — Adonis 31 

Adonis.— Ven. ; Pass. Pilg. 4; 6; 9; Shr. Ind. 2. 52; Sonn. 53. 5; 
H6A I. 6. 6. 

The sources of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis have 
been well demonstrated by Thomas Baynes in an article 
called What Shakespeare learned at School, Fraser's Mag. 
(New Series) 21. 629-632. After carefully examining the 
ground, I am able to add only one or two additional proofs 
of the correctness of his conclusions. 

Shakespeare's story combines two of Ovid's fables: that 
of Venus and Adonis, Met. 10. 519-559, 705-739, and that of 
Salmacis and Hermaphrodite, Met. 4. 285-388. In the first 
of these fables only the outline of the story is given. Venus, 
accidentally wounded by Cupid's arrow, falls in love with 
the boy Adonis, and, in her pursuit of him, adopts the garb 
of Diana and hunts the less dangerous beasts. She counsels 
Adonis to avoid boars, wolves, bears, and lions. She espe- 
cially detests the boar. Adonis asks why. They recline 
side by side under the shade of a poplar, while she tells him 
the story of Atalanta (11. 560-704). After the warning she 
departs. Adonis hunts the boar and is killed. Venus, 
returning, mourns over him, and has him metamorphosed 
into the anemone. Of the bashfulness and persistent cold- 
ness of Adonis there is no hint. For this the story of 
Salmacis is unquestionably the source. 

That Shakespeare had before him the passage in Met. 10 
is proved by the following cases of imitation : 

Sic ait, ac mediis interserit oscula verbis. 
Met. 10. 559. 

with which cf. Ven. 47, 54, 59. 

Non movet astas 
Nee facies nee quae Venerem movere, leones 
Sastigerosque sues, oculosque animosque ferarum. 

Met. 10. 547-549- 

with which cf. Ven. 631-632. 

Tutceque animalia prsedse, 
Aut pronos lepores, aut celsum in cornua cervum, 
Aut agitat dammas. 

Met. 10. 537-539- 



32 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

with which cf. Ven. 674-676, though the appHcation is 
changed, as also in the following quotation which is to be 
compared with Ven, 884-885 : 

A fortibus abstinet apris, 
Raptoresque lupos armatosque unguibus ursos 
Vitat et armenti saturates csede leones. 

Met. 10. 539-541- 

A cursory reading of Ovid's fable of Salmacis will con- 
vince one that Shakespeare has combined that story with the 
fable of Venus and Adonis. Further proof of this confu- 
sion is furnished .by an examination of sonnets 4 and 6 of 
the Passionate Pilgrim, which are accepted as Shakespeare's. 
In each, Cytherea is 'sitting by a brook' — a scene which 
corresponds with the setting of the Salmacis story better 
than with that of Ovid's Venus and Adonis. In 1. 5 of 
sonnet 4, 

She told him stories to delight his ear, 

we have a return to the story of Venus and Adonis (see 
above), but the rest of the sonnet takes us back to Salmacis. 
The whole situation of sonnet 6 is obviously imitated from 
Ovid's Salmacis, and 11. lo-ii. 

The sun look'd on the world with glorious eye, 
Yet not so wistly as this queen on him, 

strongly suggest Met. 4. 347-49 : 

Flagrant quoque lumina nymphse 

Non aliter quam cum puro nitidissimus orbe 

Opposita speculi referitur imagine Phoebus. 

Sonnet 9 of the Passionate Pilgrim deals also with Venus 
and Adonis, but the incident is probably of Shakespeare's 
invention. 

Baynes has noticed that the description of the boar in Ven. 
619-621 is imitated from that of the Calydonian boar in 
Met. 8. 284-86 : 

On his bow-back he hath a battle set 

Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes; 

His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret. 



Mgle — j^neas 33 

Sanguine et igne micant oculi, riget ardua cervix, 
Et setae similes rigidis hastilibus horrent 
Stantque velut vallum, velut alta hastilia setse. 

Whether Shakespeare read these passages of Ovid in the 
orig-inal or in Golding's translation, it is impossible to say 
with any certainty. In two instances only is there any ver- 
bal similarity between Shakespeare and Golding. At the 
end of sonnet 4 of the Pass. Pilg. we read : 

He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward! 

On page 57a of Golding, Salmacis calls Hermaphrodite 'fro- 
ward boy.' The description of the boar is given by Golding 
in these words : 

His eies did glister blud and fire: right dreadful! was to see 
His brawned necke, right dredfull was his heare which grew as thicke 
With pricking points as one of them could well by other sticke. 
And like a front of armed Pikes set close in battall ray. 
The sturdie bristles on his back stoode staring up alway. 

(p. 107a) 
In H6A we read : 

Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens 

That one day bloom'd and fruitful were the next. 

The gardens are mentioned by Pliny, N. H. 19. 19. i ; but 
in all probability the author is indebted to the long descrip- 
tion of them in Spenser, F. Q. 3. 6. Stanza 42 says that 
continual spring and harvest meet together there, and both 
blossoms and fruit are found side by side. 

.aEgle.— Mids. 2. I. 79. See Theseus. * 

.ffineas.— Mids. i. i. 174; Hml. 2. 2. 468; C^s. i. 2. 112; Ant. y^ 
4. 14. 53; Tp, 2. I. 79; Cymb. 3. 4. 60; Troil. passim. Tit. 
3. 2. 27; 5. 3. 80; H6B 3. 2. 118. 

The slightly developed character of ^Eneas in Troil. is 
probably drawn from Caxton's summary of his character on 
P- 543 of the Recuyell: 'Eneas had a grete body discrete mer- 
vayllously in his werkis well bespoken and attempryd in his 
wordes. Full of good counceyll and of science connyng 
3 



34 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

He had his visage loyouse/ and the eyen clere and graye.' 
In the plays he is mentioned seldom. Twice he is referred 
to as bearing Anchises on his shoulders, Cses. i. 2. 112, 
H6B 5. 2. 62 (cf. ySn. 2. 707). In every other instance he 
is mentioned in connection with Dido (q. v.). In Cymb. 
he is 'false ^neas,' where, though Dido is not mentioned, 
the connection is obvious. Twice (Caes. i. 2. 112 ; Tit. 3. 2. 
27) he is ancestor of the Romans. That Venus is his 
mother would be gathered from his oath by Anchises and 
Venus in Troil. 4. i. 21. Of his adventures after leaving 
Dido, there is no hint in Shakespeare. 

JEolus.— H6B 3. 2. 92; Per. 3. i. 2. 

In H6B ^olus is spoken of as loosing the winds from 
their 'brazen caves,' and in Per. he is implored to 'bind 
them in brass.' This is to be referred to Od. 10. 2, where 
the island of ^olus is said to have a tcixos xo^'^^ov. There is 
no mention of brass in the Vergilian account. 

.ffisculapius. — Per. 3. 2. iii. 

'yEsculapius guide us,' i. e. in a case of medical treatment. 
yEsculapius is the god of the medical art, or as in Homer, a 
'blameless physician' (//. 4. 194). In Met. 15. 535 the dis- 
membered body of Hippolytus is restored 'by .^^sculapius 
meanes', as Golding renders the 'ope Pseonia' of the original. 
In Met. 15. 622 ff. Ovid describes how ^sculapius was 
brought to Rome. Again Golding supplies his name (p. 
196b), which is suppressed in the Latin. 

i 
.ffison. — Merch. 5. i. 13. See Argonauts. 

Agamemnon.— H4B 2. 4. 237; H5. 3- 6. 7; H6C 2. 2. 148; Troil. 
passim. 

The Agamemnon of Troil. is not deeply characterized. 
He is the chief commander, and his opening speech is not 
without kingliness, but he is by no means the most promi- 
nent Greek on the stage. The character may have been 
drawn from Caxton, from Homer, or from mere tradition. 



Molus — A fax ; 35 

He is mentioned three times in the other dramas. In H4B 
he is a type of valor ; in H5 the Welshman, Fluellen, says 
that the Duke of Exeter is 'as magnanimous as Agememnon.' 
The epithet magnanirmis is used by Ovid and Vergil of sev- 
eral of the heroes, but never of Agamemnon. It translates 
fX€ydevfios of Homer; but in Homer this epithet is not pecu- 
liar to Agamemnon. He is mentioned as brother of Mene- 
laus in H6C. 

Agenor.— Ado 5. 4. 45. The father of Europa. See Jupiter. 

Ajax.— LLL 4. 3. 7; 5. 2. 581; Lucr. 1394, 1398; Lr. 2. 2. 133; 
Ant. 4. 13. 2; 4. 14. 38; Cymb. 4. 2. 252; H6B 5. i. 26; Tit. 
I. I. 379; Shr. 3. I. 53; and Troil. passim. 

Shakespeare's knowledge of Ajax is to a great extent 
drawn from the account of his dispute with Ulysses over the 
armor of Achilles given by Ovid in Met. 13. Ulysses, by 
his cunning speech, persuades the Greeks to award the 
armor to him, on which Ajax, overcome by grief and 
chagrin, goes mad and kills himself with his own sword. 
To this dispute Shakespeare refers in several passages. 
Thus we find the two heroes mentioned together in the 
description of the Troy picture in Lucr., the blunt rage of 
Ajax contrasting with the mild, sly glance of Ulysses. So, 
too, in Lr. when Kent is rebuked by Cornwall for the blunt- 
ness of his speech, he exclaims : 'None of these rogues and 
cowards but Ajax is their fool' This I should paraphrase 
as follows: T am a plain blunt fellow like Ovid's Ajax. 
You, Oswald, are a smooth talker like Ulysses. (Ajax calls 
him rogue and coward in Ovid.) The Ulysses is always 
able to make a fool of the Ajax and get the better of him 
as you do now of me.' From the same passage in Met. 
Shakespeare might have learned of the 'seven-fold shield' of 
Ajax, referred to in Ant. 4. 14. 38, the 'clipeus septemplex' 
of Met. 13. 2 ; so too the fact mentioned in Shr. that Ajax 
was called yEacides from his grandfather. Still another 
allusion to the dispute is found in Ant. 4. 13. 2. 

In his drama, Ajax, Sophocles describes further how in 
his madness Ajax slaughtered -sheep and oxen, and how 



36 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

after his death, his rival, Ulysses, persuaded the Greeks to 
grant him honorable burial. To the slaughter of the cattle 
we find allusion in LLL 4 and H6B, and in Tit. to the inter- 
cession of Ulysses. We must not, however, assume too 
hastily that Shakespeare was acquainted with Sophocles, for 
the story of the cattle is mentioned in Horace, Sat. 2. 3. 202, 
and Ritson says that it is embodied in one of the proverbs 
of Fuller's Gnomologia; for the intercession of Ulysses it is 
not so easy to find a source outside of Sophocles. 

The character of Ajax as shown in Troil. requires special 
comment. From the testimony of the other characters, and 
from the actions of Ajax himself, we find him a vain brag- 
gart, self-willed, stupid. This is not the Ajax of Homer 
nor of Caxton, who furnish the main incidents of his action. 
So great is the disparity that R. A. Small in The Stage- 
Quarrel between Ben Jonson and the So-called Poetasters, 
Breslau, 1899, thinks Shakespeare has invented the charac- 
terization as a satire on Jonson. But the Ajax of Troil. is 
the Ajax of Ulysses's speech in Met. 13. He is called in 
Golding's translation 'dolt and grossehead' (p. 162a), 'hath 
neyther wit nor knowledge' (p. 164b), etc. His vaunting 
is mentioned on p. 163b and his whole speech claiming the 
arms justifies the charge. 

He is called Ajax Telamonius in H6B, and in Ant. 4. 13 
merely Telamon. 

Alcides. — See Hercules. 

Alecto. — Ant. 2. 5. 40. See Furies. . 

Althaea. — H4B 2. 2. 93, 96; H6B i. i. 234. 

In H4B the Page calls the red-faced Bardolph 'rascally 
Althaea's dream,' and explains : 'Althaea dreamed she was 
delivered of a firebrand ; and therefore I call him her dream.' 
On this Dr. Johnson comments : 'Shakespeare is here mis- 
taken in his mythology, and has confounded Althaea's fire- 
brand with Hecuba's. The firebrand of Althaea was real; 
but Hecuba, when she was big with Paris, dreamed that she 



Alcides — Apollo 37 

was delivered of a firebrand which consumed the kingdom.' 
Hecuba's dream is described in Ovid, Her. 16. 45-46. 

The true Althjea's brand is alluded to in H6B, which is to 
be referred to Met. 8. 260-547. Paris is rightly called a 
'firebrand' in Troil. 2. 2. no. (See Paris.) 

Amazons. — K. J. 5. 2. 155; Cor. 2. 2. 95; Tim. i. 2. 136; H6A 
I. 2. 104; H6C I. 4. 114; 4. I. 106. 

The term is used of women who, as La Pucelle for exam- 
ple, take part in war. It is impossible to assign any source 
for so common an idea. 

Amphion (?) 

In Tp. 2. I. 87 Sebastian says : 'His word is more than the 
miraculous harp; he hath raised the wall and houses too.' 
That Amphion raised the walls of Thebes with his music, 
is mentioned in Met. 6. 178. Golding translates (p. 77b) : 

This same towne whose walles my husbands harpe did frame. 

W. A. Wright says that it may rather be Apollo who raised 
the walls of Troy. The miraculous harp of Apollo is men- 
tioned in Her. 16. 180. 

Anchises. — Caes. i. 2. 114; Troil. 4. i. 21; H6B 5. 2. 62. See 

.^neas. 

Anna. — Shr. i. i. 159. See Dido. 
Antiopa. — Mids. 2. i. 80. See Theseus. 
Apollo. 

Except in a single epithet 'fire-robed' (Wint. 4. 4. 30), 
there is no suggestion that Shakespeare connects Apollo with 
the sun, which he personifies so often under the name of 
Phoebus. (See Sun-divinities.) It is as patron of music 
and of learning that Shakespeare regards him. As motto 
to one of his earliest works, the Ven., he quoted two lines 
from Ovid {Am. i. 15. 35-36) which show Apollo in this 
capacity : 

Vilia miretur vulgus ; mihi flavus Apollo 
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua. 



38 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

In LLL we find the simile : 'As sweet and musical as bright 
Apollo's lute, strung with his hair' — a conceit which is prob- 
abh' Shakespeare's own, though the beauty of Apollo's hair 
is implied in the epithet 'flavus.' Apollo is also patron of 
music in LLL 5. 2. 941 ; Troil. 3. 3. 305 ; Shr. Ind. 2. 37. 
He is patron of learning in Per. 3. 2. 67 and probably also 
in Troil. i, 3. 328. In Troil. 2. 2. 79 he is merely a type 
of beauty. 

In Wint. Leontes consults the oracle at Delphi as to his 
wife's chastit}^ and in consequence Apollo's name occurs 
frequently, especially in Acts 2 and 3. It is to be noticed 
that Shakespeare considers Delphi an island (3. i. 2), a mis- 
take which he borrows from Dorastus and Faivnia (Hazlitt's 
Shak. Lihr. Pt. i. Vol. 4. p. 39), from which he takes the 
whole incident of consulting the oracle. The 'ysle of Delphi' 
is also mentioned by Caxton, p. 548 etc. 

Lear's oath by Apollo (Lr. i. i. 162) may be explained 
by the fact that Holinshed says that a 'temple of Apollo 
stood in the citie of Troinouant' (London) (Bos well-Stone's 
Shakespeare's Holinshed, p. 5, note). 

Of the mythology in a narrower sense, there is a mere 
allusion to Apollo's metamorphosis into a shepherd for the 
deception of Isse {Met. 6. 122) taken over bodily from 
Dorastus and Fazvnia (Hazlitt's Shak. Lihr. Pt. I. Vol. 4. 
p. 62.) in Wint. 4. 4. 30; and three allusions to the fable 
of Apollo and Daphne: Mids. 2. i. 231; Troil. i. i. loi ; 
Shr. Ind. 2. 61. Shakespeare may well have learned the 
story from Met. i. 452 seq. More explicit is the reference 
in Shr. where the servant, having offered various pictures to 
poor Sly, suggests : 

Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood, 
Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds, 
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep. 

With this cf. Met. i. 508-9 ; Apollo says : 

Alas alas how woulde it greeve my hart, 
Too see thee fall among the briers, and that the blud shoulde start 
Out of thy tender legges, I wretch the causer of thy smart. 

(Golding, p. lib) 



Aquilon — Argonauts 39 

Aquilon. — Troil. 4. 5. 9. 

The north wind. Only twice does Shakespeare personify 
the winds under classical names: here and in Troil. i. 3. 38 
where Boreas is mentioned, both times, it will be observed, 
in the same play. The particular expression : 

Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek 
Outswell the colic of pufif'd Aquilon 

suggests the ■ 

Blow winds, and crack your cheeks 

of Lr. 3. 2. I. In each case the allusion is to the conven- 
tional pictorial representation of the winds as cherubs with 
puffed cheeks. (Cf. Botticelli's Venus.) 

The names Boreas and Aquilon occur in Vergil. 

Arachne (Ariachne). — Troil. 5. 2. 152. 

Arachne is the maiden, who, presuming to vie with Minerva 
in weaving, was for her arrogance turned into a spider. 
Met. 6. 1-145. 

By 'Ariachne's broken woof Shakespeare means, appar- 
ently, cobweb. (Cf. K. J. 4. 3. 128.) The passage would 
then be paraphrased : 'No opening large enough for a 
thread of cobweb to enter.' The phrase ' broken woof,' 
however, is suggestive of the Ovidian story. Shakespeare's 
mistaken form of the name is to be traced to confusion with 
Ariadne, who is also famed for her thread. 

Argonauts. — Merch. i. i. 170-172; 3. 2. 244; 5. i. 13; H6B 5. 2. 59. 

It is worthy of notice that all the allusions to the Argo- 
nauts in the genuine plays occur in Merch. The winning 
of the golden fleece is alluded to in the first two passages, 
for which the source is to be found in Met. 7. i seq. in Gold- 
ing's translation, as shown by the phrase 'Colchos strand' 
(Merch. i. i. 171), evidently taken from the following line 
on p. 89b of Golding: 

And so with conquest and a wife he loosde from Colchos strond. 



40 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

{Colchos is a frequent spelling in i6th century books.) 
In March, 5. i. 13 we read: 

In such a night 
Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs 
That did renew old ^son. 

The mention of Medea after Thisbe and Dido, whose 
stories are related consecutively in that order in the Legend 
of Good Women, would make us look to the Legend as a 
source, but we find there no mention of the 'renewal' of 
-^son. The story is told at length in Met. 7. 159-293. In 

1. 180 we learn that the magic herbs were gathered under 
a full moon, which is the point of allusion. From this pas- 
sage of Met. in Golding's translation Shakespeare later 
borrowed Prospero's incantation in Tp. 5. i. 33 ff. The 
presumption that Shakespeare read the passage in Golding 
is further strengthened by the lines on p. 92 : 

And as from dull unweeldsome age to youth he backwarde drew; 
Even so a lively youthful! spright did in his hart renew, 

which depart widely from the Latin original. 

The story of Medea and Absyrtus, alluded to in H6B 5. 

2. 59, is told by Ovid in Trist. 3. 9. 

Argus. — LLL 3. i. 201; Merch. 5. i. 230; Troil. i. 2. 31. 

The monster with a hundred eyes set by the jealous Juno 
to guard lo. He is lulled asleep by the music of Mercury, 
Met. I. 621 seq. By a strange confusion with the Hydra, 
the charming asleep of Argus' eyes is mentioned in con- 
nection with Hydra in H4B 4. 2. 38. (Cf. s. v. Hercules.) 

Ariadne. — Gent. 4. 4. 172; Mids. 2. i. 80. 
In Gent, we read : 

Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning 
For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight. 

Shakespeare may have in mind Her. 10, which is one long 
'passioning' of Ariadne, (or Chaucer's imitation of it. 
Legend of Good Women 2185 ff.) which he imitates in 



Argus — Atalanta 41 

Merch. (see Dido). The word 'perjury' suggests Fasti 3. 
469 seq. : 

Flebat amans coniunx, spatiataque litore curvo 
Edidit incultis talia verba comis : 
'En iterum, fluctus, similis audite querellas ! 
En iterum lacrimas accipe, harena, meas ! 
Dicebam, memini, "periure et perfide Theseu !" ' 

He is called perinriis also in Am. i. 7. 15. Ariadne is men- 
tioned as a forsaken love of Theseus in Mids., where the 
name may have been taken from North's Plutarch, Theseus, 
p. yTf (see Theseus). 

Arion. — Tw. i. 2. 15. 

The story of Arion is told by Ovid, Fasti 2. 83 seq. ; but 
the story was, of course, common property. Cf. Spenser, 
F. Q. 4. II. 23. It is noticeable that Shakespeare does not 
refer to him as a musician. 

Ascanius. — H6B 3. 2. 116. 

Mentioned as Eneas' son, relating his father's acts to 
Dido. See Dido. 

Astraea. — Tit. 4. 3. 4; H6A i. 6. 4. 

In Tit. the words 'Terras Astrgea reliquit' are quoted 
exactly from Met. i. 150, and the idea is further expanded 
at 11. 39. 49 of the same scene. In H6A Charles calls 
La Pucelle : 'Divinest creature, Astrsea's daughter,' mean- 
ing possibly that in rescuing Orleans she has made justice 
prevail, or perhaps associating her with the Golden Age, 
before Astrasa left the earth. 

Atalanta. — As. 3. 2. 155 ; 3. 2. 293. 

In the second passage there is a reference to Atalanta's 
heels : that is her swiftness. The story is told in Met. 10. 
560-704. What is meant by 'Atalanta's better part' in the 
first passage has caused long discussion (see Furness' Var.). 



42 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

That Dr. Furness is right in deciding it to be her beauty is 
supported by the antithesis impHed in 11. 562-3 : 

And hard it is to tell 
Thee whither she did in footemanshippe or beawty more excel!. 

(Golding, p. 137a) 

Ate. — LLL 5. 2. 694; K. J. 2. i. 63; Ado 2. i. 263; Cses. 3. i. 271. 

In the first passage Biron says : 'More Ates ! more Ates ! 
stir them on ! stir them on !' In K. J. and Cses. there is the 
same idea of stirring on to blood and strife. In Ado Bene- 
dick says of Beatrice : 'You shall find her the infernal Ate 
in good apparel.' Ate is the spirit of discord inciting to 
war. She is referred to at some length in Iliad 19. 91 seq. 
but Chapman's translation did not appear till 161 1. In 
Latin literature the name does not occur at all. Where 
then did Shakespeare learn it? Furness suggests Spenser, 
Faerie Queene 4. i. 19-30, where she is described in detail, 
but unfortunately there is a discrepancy of dates. Book IV 
of the F. Q. was not published till 1598, while K. J. is 
assigned to 1595 and LLL cannot be later than 1591 (chough 
perhaps revised in 1598). Ate is also mentioned in F. Q. 
2. 7- 55 (pub. 1590) as having thrown the apple of discord, 
but the allusion is only a passing one. Perhaps Shakespeare 
learned her name from Peele's Arraignment of Paris (1584) 
in which she appears as Prologue, calling herself 'condemned 
soul, Ate, from lowest hell.' She is identical with the Dis- 
cordia of u^n. 6. 280, who is one of the dwellers in hell- 
mouth. The 'Ate in good apparel' of Ado may be in con- 
trast to the line : 

Et scissa gaudens vadit Discordia palla 

of ^n. 8. 702. Cf. also Statius, Thcb. i. 109, where the 
poet is describing Tisiphone. 

Atlas. — Ant. i. 5. 23; H6C 5. i. 36. 

Cleopatra calls Antony the 'demi-Atlas of this earth.' In 
Alet. 4. 662 Atlas is mentioned as supporting the heavens on 
his shoulders. The idea is a commonplace. 



Ate — Aurora 43 

Aurora. 

Aurora is mentioned by name only twice : Mids. 3. 2. 380 ; 
Rom. I. I. 142. In the first instance she is merely the dawn, 
and the morning star is called her harbinger. In the second 
passage there is more significance: 

But all so soon as the all-cheering sun 
Should in the furthest east begin to draw 
The shady curtains from Aurora's bed. 

This would apparently mean that the sun drew the curtains 
and left her bed. Such an interpretation is supported by 
several passages in which 'morning' is personified. Thus 
in Ven. 855 : 

And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast 
The sun ariseth in his majesty. 

and in H6C 2, i. 21 : 

See how the morning opes her golden gates, 
And takes her farewell of the glorious sun. 

Cf. also Ven. i ; Tit. 2. i. 5. The passage in H6C evidently 
regards the sun as a lover sent forth by Morning to run his 
course and return to her again. If this interpretation is 
correct, it will furnish an explanation to a disputed passage 
in Mids. (3. 2. 389) : Puck says: 

My fairy lord, this must be done with haste. 
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, 
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger; 

at whose approach all spirits must vanish. To this Oberon 
replies : 

But we are spirits of another sort: 

I with the morning's love have oft made sport. 

Who is the 'morning's love' with whom Oberon has sported ? 
Shakespeare never mentions Tithonus ; it seems to me 
improbable that Cephalus is intended. May it not be the 
sun? Oberon would then be made to say, T have often 
sported in sunlight' — an answer which meets Puck's objec- 



44 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

tion. That this conception is not pecuhar to Shakespeare 
may be shown by Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde 3. 1464-7 : 

And eek the Sonne Tytan gan he chyde, 
And seyde, 'O fool, wel may men thee dispyse, 
That hast the Dawing al night by thy syde, 
And suffrest hir so sone up fro thee ryse.' 

One is tempted to ask whether there may not have been 
some confusion of the names Titan and Tithonus. 

Autolycus. — Wint. 4. 3. 24, etc. 

The Autolycus of Ovid is a son of Mercury, 'furtum 
ingeniosus ad omne .... patriae non degener artis' Met. 
II. 313-315. In Wint. he is 'Httered under Mercury,' and is 
'a snapper up of unconsidered trifles.' 

Bacchus. — LLL 4. 3. 339; Ant. 2. 7. 121. 

In the first passage 'dainty Bacchus' is spoken of as 
having a deHcate taste ; in the second, he is addressed in a 
drinking song as 'monarch of the vine, Plumpy Bacchus 
with pink eyne.' This conception is thoroughly conven- 
tional, and cannot be assigned to a particular source. 

Bellona. — Mcb. i, 2. 54. 

Macbeth is called 'Bellona's bridegroom.' As Clarendon 
has suggested, this may be a reminiscence of 'et Bellona 
manet te pronuba' of ^n. 7. 319. Cf. Massinger, Bond- 
man I. I. 13-14: 

I'd court Bellona in her horrid trim 
As if she were a mistress. 

Boreas. — Troil. i. 3. 38. See Aquilon. 

Briareus. — Troil. i. 2. 30. 

Merely alluded to as having 'many hands.' Vergil men- 
tions 'centumgeminus Briareus' in the descent into Hades. 
^n. 6. 287. Cf. also Hom. //. i. 403. 



Autolycus — Centaurs 45 

Calydonian Boar. — Ant. 4. 13. 2. 

'The boar of Thessaly was never so embossed.' Calydon 
is in yEtolia instead of Thessaly, but the two provinces are 
not far apart. Embossed means 'foaming at the mouth' 
(Schmidt). In Met. 8. 288, 417, this detail is mentioned. 
The first of these passages is that copied by Shakespeare in 
Ven. (cf. s. V. Adonis). 

Centaurs.— Mids. 5. i. 44; Hml. 4. 7. 88; Lr. 4. 6. 126; Troil. ^ 

5. 5. 14; Tit. 5. 2. 204. 

In Lr. Shakespeare uses the Centaur, half human, half 
horse, as a type of the bestiality of human nature : 

Down from the waist they are Centaurs, 
Though women all above. 

The idea is one that might easily occur to Shakespeare inde- 
pendently of any source. Still, in Ovid the Centaurs are 
given to lust and violence, as Nessus who attempted the 
rape of Deianira (see Hercules) and the Centaurs at the 
marriage feast of Hippodamia. At this, one of the Centaurs 
tries to violate the bride ; and the feast ends in a bloody 
battle between the Centaurs and Lapithae. Met. 12. 210 seq. 
This feast is twice alluded to in Shakespeare : Mids. 5. i. 44 ; 
Tit. 5. 2. 204. Especially appropriate is the allusion in Tit., 
for Ovid's story is told with a wealth of revolting detail 
rivalling that of Tit. In Mids. Theseus reads : 

'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung 
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.' 
We'll none of that : that have I told my love 
In glory of my kinsman Hercules. 

Hercules' battle with the Centaurs was not the same as the 
battle of Centaurs and Lapith^ (cf. Apollod. 2. 5. 4 and 
Diod. 4. 33), but the two battles were very early confused. 
In Met. 12, when Nestor has finished the account of the bat- 
tle over Hippodamia, Tlepolemus says (11. 539-541) : 

Herculese mirum est oblivia laudis 
Acti tibi, senior. Certe mihi ssepe referre 
Nubigenas domitos a se pater ipse solebat. 



46 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

The same confusion is to be noticed in North's Plutarch, 
Theseus, p. 75, in Caxton, p. 315 ff., and in Spenser, F. Q. 
4. I. 23. In Hml. 4. 7. 88 a good horseman is compared to 
a Centaur, tacito nomine. (Cf. Jonson, Underzvoods 71.) 
The 'dreadful Sagittary' of Troil. 5. 5. 14 is a Centaur who, 
as Caxton tells us, came to the aid of the Trojans. 'The 
Centaur' is the name of an inn in Err. 

Cephalus and Procris. — Mids. 5. i. 201, 202. 

Not Shefalus to Procrus was so true. 

The mechanicals have mispronounced the names of the 
Ovidian couple. The fidelity of Cephalus is related in Met. 
7. 690 seq. A poem called Procris and Cephalus was 
entered on the Stat. Reg. on 22 Oct. 1593. The poem is 
attributed to Anthony Chute, but there seems to be reason 
for thinking it not by Chute, but by Thomas Edwards {Diet. 
Nat. Biog. s. V. Chute). The date of Mids. has been placed 
as early as 1590, and as late as 1595. 

Cerberus.— LLL 5. 2. 593; H4B 2. 4. 182; Troil. 2. i. 37; Tit. 
2. 4- 51. 

Cerberus disputes the passage of ^Eneas in ^n. 6. 417-425, 
but the sibyl stupefies him with a drugged cake. Shake- 
speare mentions him in connection with Hercules (LLL) and 
with Orpheus (Tit). See tmder Hercules and Orpheus. 
The 'King Cerberus' of H4B is one of Pistol's confusions, 
and has nothing to do with the canine subject of this para- 
graph. For the reference to Cerberus and Proserpina in 
Troil., I find no definite authority. 

Ceres. — Tp. 4. i. 60-138; H6B i. 2. 2. 

In the masque in Tp. Ceres appears as the divinity who 
presides over the 'foison plenty' of earth's increase. The 
editors have pointed out the fact, that in making her preside 
over the 'pole-clipt vineyard' and the 'sea-marge, sterile 
and rocky-hard,' the author expands her strictly classical 
character as goddess of grain. In the same passage she is 



Cephalus and Procris — Circe 47 

recognized as mother of Proserpina (cf. Met. 5. 359-550). 
In H6B the phrase 'Ceres' plenteous load' is equivalent to 
'weight of grain.' 

Charon.— R3. i. 4. 46; Troil. 3. 2. 11. See Hades. 

Charybdis.— Merch. 3. 5. 19. See Scylla. 

Cimmerian. — Tit. 2. 3. 72. 

Aaron, the moor, is called a 'swart Cimmerian.' The 
land of the Cimmerians at the gate of Hades is described in 
Od. II. 14 seq. 'Never on them does the shining sun look 
down with his beams .... but deadly night is spread 
abroad over these hapless men.' But the men are not 
described as of swart skin. Does Shakespeare confuse 
them with the Ethiopians? Johnson says: 'The Moor is 
called Cimmerian from the affinity of blackness to darkness.' 
The phrase 'darke Ciiiimerians' occurs in Golding, p. 147b, 
at the beginning of the description of the Cave of Sleep, 
where the original has no epithet. {Met. 11. 592.) 

Circe.— Err. 5. i. 270; H6A 5. 3. 35. 

In Err. the Duke says : 

Why what an intricate impeach is this ! 
I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup. 

On this Malone remarks : 'Circe's cup turned men to swine 
but did not deprive them of their reason.' But the Duke 
merely means that there has been a change of form and con- 
sequent confusion. Cf. also Err. 3. 2. 151. In H6A: 

See how the ugly witch doth bend her brows, 
As if with Circe she would change my shape! 

Homer's account of Circe in Od. 10. 133-260 is retold at 
length by Ovid in Met. 14. 244-309, where Shakespeare 
probably became acquainted with it. Circe is also mentioned 
in ^n. 7. 10-20. In Ovid's version Circe's cup {pociila) is 
twice mentioned. 



48 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Cocytus. — See Hades. 

Cressida. — See Troilus. 

Cupid. 

Shakespeare's mentions of Cupid (or of Love as equiva- 
lent to Cupid) are very numerous. The epithets and attri- 
butes are those common to all his contemporaries. He is a 
boy, the son of Venus (As 4. i. 216), in 21 passages armed 
v^ith bow and arrow, 20 times referred to as blind, 7 times 
as winged, 3 times with a firebrand. Except for the quality 
of blindness all these attributes are to be found in Ovid. 
For the bow cf. Am. 2. 9. 5, etc. ; for the wings, Art. i. 233 ; 
for the brand, Am. 2. 9. 5. This late Roman tradition is 
very widespread. Isidore (died 636) explains these attri- 
butes in Origines 8. 11. 80; 'Qui ideo alatus pingitur quia 
nihil amantibus levius, nihil mutabilius invenitur : Puer 
pingitur quia stultus est et irrationabilis amor: Sagittam et 
facem tenere fingitur ; sagittam quia amor cor vulnerat, 
facem quia inflammat.' A passage closely resembling this 
is to be found in Mythographi 2. fab. 33, ed. Mai, in Clas- 
sicorum Auctorum e Vaticanis Codicihus Edit or um, Tom. 
III., Romae, 1831. Cf. also Propertius, Eleg. 2. 12. Closely 
resembling these passages in manner is Mids. i. i. 234 ff . : 

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; 
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind, etc. 

For the blindness of Cupid I find no classical authority 
whatever; but the notion was already common in Chaucer 
(Hous of Fame 138, etc.) and Gower {Conf. Am. 3. 1465; 
5. 1417; etc). 

More specific is the allusion to the golden arrow in Ven. 
947 ; Tw. I.I. 35, and in the following lines from Mids. i. i. 
169-170: 

I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow, 
By his best arrow with the golden head. 

This is to be traced ultimately to Met. i. 466. Golding 
translates : 



Cocytns — Cupid 49 

There from his quiver full of shafts two arrowes he did take 
Of sundrie powres ; tone causeth love the tother doth it slake. 
That causeth love, is all of golde with point full sharpe and bryght, 
That chaseth love, is blunt whose steale with leaden head is dyght. 

(p. iia) 

As these lines are contained in the account of Apollo and 
Daphne, they may well be the direct source. The idea is 
also to be found in Spenser, Colin Clout's Come Home 
Again 807, and in the emblein-books. An early mediaeval 
instance is found in the Old French Fahlel dou Dieu 
d' Amours, see W. A. Neilson, Origins and Sources of the 
Court of Love, p. 42. 

More significant than Shakespeare's conception of Cupid 
is the use which he makes of the myth. Two facts are 
immediately obvious, (i) that mentions of Cupid are very 
rare after 1601 (only 5 in the authentic plays), and (2) 
that in all but a few instances the references are of a play- 
ful character, that Cupid is not seriously regarded as a 
divinity of love. Thus he is spoken of playfully as 'blind 
bow-boy' ; his arrow is called a 'butt-shaft,' etc. To 
this usage Mids. furnishes a sharp contrast, especially 
in such a passage as that in 2. i. 155 ff., where Cupid 
takes aim 'At a fair vestal throned in the west.' Perhaps 
with the fairy mythology of the play a serious Cupid seemed 
more in keeping. 

The distribution of the allusions to Cupid by name is as 
follows: Ven. i; LLL 10; Mids. 8; Rom. 5 (half playful, 
half serious) ; Merch. 2; Wiv. 2; Ado 9 (very playful) ; 
As 2 ; Alls 2 ; Sonn. 2 (half playful) ; Oth. i (in a disparaging 
sense) ; Lr. i (in Lear's mad raving) ; Troil. 5 (rather more 
serious) ; Ant. i (as figure in pageant) ; Cymb. 2 (in one 
instance the figure of andirons) ; Per. i. Gent, has no men- 
tion of Cupid by name, but Love with attributes of Cupid 9 
times, rather seriously. Love is similarly mentioned twice 
in Rom. with a considerable degree of seriousness. The 
phrase 'Saint Cupid' occurs twice in LLL, 4. 3. 366; 5. 2. 
87 (cf. Chaucer's 'Seynt Venus,' Wif of Bath's Prologue 
604). 



50 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

J Cyclops. — Hml. 2. 511; Tit. 4. 3. 46. 

In the first passage the Cyclopes are forging Mars' armor. 
In ^n. 8. 426 they are engaged in making him a chariot 
and flying wheels at the time when Venus comes to beg a 
suit of armor for ^neas (cf. s. v. Vulcan). Tit. 4. 3. 47 
refers to the size of the Cyclops. Polyphemus is described 
in ^n. 3. 655 seq. ; Ulct. 13. 764 seq. 

Cynthia. — Ven. 728; Rom. 3. 5. 20; Per. 2. 5. 11. See Diana. 

Cytherea. — Pass. Pilg. 43; 73; Cymb. 2. 2. 14; Wint. 4. 4. 122; 
Shr. Ind. 2. 53. See Venus. 

Daedalus (Icarus. Minos.) — H6A 4. 6. 55; 4. 7. 16; H6C 5. 6. 21. 
(Minotaur.)— H6 A 5. 3. 189. 

Only in H6A and C is the Cretan story alluded to. Tal- 
bot, leading his brave son into danger, compares himself to 
Daedalus and his son to Icarus : 

And in that sea of blood my boy did drench 
His over-mounting spirit, and there died, 
My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride. 

In H6C the King finds himself in a similar position. He 
says to Gloucester (Richard) : 

I, Daedalus ; my poor boy Icarus ; 
Thy father, Minos that denied our course ; 
The sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy 
Thy brother Edward, and thyself the sea 
Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life. 

The Story is told at length in Met. 8. 183-235. 

The allusion to the Minotaur is much less detailed. Suf- 
folk, tempted to enter a dangerous intrigue, says to himself : 

Thou mayst not wander in that labyrinth ; 
There Minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk. 

This may perhaps be referred to Met. 8. 152 seq., though 
neither the word 'labyrinth' nor the name 'Minotaur' 
appears. Golding, however, has the latter (p. 105a). In 
^;l 6. 26 the story is also touched on, and the name Mino- 



Cyclops — Diana 51 

taur mentioned. Both names are mentioned in North's 
Plutarch, Theseus, p. 49. 

Danae (?). — Rom. i. i. 220. See Jupiter. 

Daphne. — Mids. 2. i. 231 ; Troil. i. i. loi ; Shr. Ind. 2. 61. See 
Apollo. 

Destiny, Destinies. — See Fate. 

Deucalion. — Cor. 2. i. 102; Wint. 4. 4. 441; (Cses. i. 2. 152). 

Deucalion is mentioned twice in plays with classical set- 
ting as equivalent to Noah, i, e. as the common ancestor of 
the race, or as one standing in the dawn of history. Cf. 
'Since before Noah was a sailor,' Tw. 3. 2. 18. The 'great 
flood' of Cses. I. 2. 152 is probably Deucalion's. For the 
story see Met. i. 313 seq. 

Diana. 

It is as patroness and type of chastity that Shakespeare 
most often alludes to Diana. These allusions, of which 
there are sixteen in the authentic plays, cover the whole 
range of Shakespeare's activity from Mids. to Cymb., and 
are pretty evenly divided between tragedies and comedies, 
but never occur in the histories. In this capacity, Diana is 
antithetic to Cupid (or Venus). The antithesis is expressed 
in Rom. i. i. 215; Ado 4. i. 58; Alls i. 3. 218; 2. 3. 80. 
In Mids. 4. I. 76, 

Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower 

Hath such force and blessed power, 

Steevens sees an allusion to the Agnus^astus, 'the virtue of 
which is that he will keep man and /woman chaste' (see the 
Chaucerian Flower and the Leaf 472-5). The line is more 
simply explained by Ado 4. i. 58: 

You seem to me as Dian in her orb. 

As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown. 

Still the context would seem to show that 'Cupid's flower' 
is the 'love-in-idleness' of 2. i. 168, and we not unnaturally 



52 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

expect a particular flower to counteract its charm. It is 
noticeable that as patroness of chastity, Shakespeare men- 
tions the divinity by only one name, Diana (or Dian). 

Next in frequency are the allusions to Diana as the moon- 
goddess, or oftener by metonymy as the moon itself ; but 
these allusions are largely confined to the earlier works : 
Ven. 725, 728; LLL 4. 2. 35 ff. ; Gent. 4. 2. 100; Mids. i. i. 
209; 3. 2. 53; Rom. 2. 2. 4; 3. 5. 20; Merch. 5. i. 109; 
H4A I. 2. 29. (Perhaps also Ado 5. 3. 12; Cor. 5. 3. 67.) 
In this aspect, and in this aspect alone in the authentic plays, 
she receives her alternate names, Phoebe and Cynthia. 
Holofernes in LLL calls her also Luna and Dictynna. This 
latter title is found in Ovid, Met. 2. 441 ; 5. 619 ; Fasti 6. 755. 
In the first of these passages it is preserved by Golding ; in 
the second he substitutes 'Diana.' In Mids. 3. 2. 53 the 
moon is spoken of as sister to the sun. If authority is 
needed for this relationship, the reader is referred to Met. 2. 

454. 

Diana as the huntress, frequenter of groves, the center of 
a band of nymphs, appears but little in the authentic plays, 
and in them her bow is not mentioned at all. The earliest 
allusion is in H4A i. 2. 29. Others are Ado 5. 3. I2(?) ; 
Alls I. 3. ii9( ?) ; Cymb. 2. 3. 74; 2. 4. 82. Of these, only 
the passages in Cymb. are clear allusions. The first of these, 
the picture of 'chaste Dian bathing' in Imogen's chamber, 
may refer to the story of Callisto, Met. 2. 401-465, or to that 
of Actseon, Met. 3. 138-252, or perhaps Shakespeare had 
some actual painting or tapestry in mind. The phrase 'vir- 
gin knight' of Diana in Ado 5. 3. 12 and the similar use of 
'knight' in Alls i. 3. 119 suggest Spenser, but in Golding, 
p. 23b, Nonacris is called a 'Knyght of Phebes troope.' 
We may notice, too, that it is Diana as goddess of the 
groves who gives her name Titania to the queen of fairies 
in Mids. See Met. 3. 173 (the story of Actgeon) and 6. 346. 
It has been noticed that in Golding's translation the name 
Titania does not occur. 

In the doubtful plays, however, the allusions are more 
explicit. Thus in H6C 4. 8. 21 : 



Diana S3 

Like to his island girt in with the ocean, 
Or modest Dian circled with her nymphs, 

we recognize an echo of the 'curcumfusseqiie Dianam cor- 
poribus texere siiis' of Met. 3. 180-181, where the nymphs 
crowd around Diana at the approach of Actaeon. (Cf. also 
F. Q. 3. 6. 19.) Again in Tit. i. i. 316: 

That like the stately Phoebe 'mongst her nymphs 
Dost overshine the gallant'st dames of Rome 

we have the 'Tamen altior ilHs Ipsa dea est, colloque tenus 
supereminet omnes' of Met. 3. 181-182, or the similar descrip- 
tion in ^n. I. 501 seq. See also Shr. 2. i. 260 f¥. 

T will weep for nothing like Diana in the fountain,' As 

4. I. 154. Halliwell says that a weeping Diana was a com- 
mon figure in Elizabethan fountains. But why is Diana 
represented as weeping? 

Among the many allusions to Diana in Per. we have in 

5. I. 249 a mention of her silver bow, and a few lines farther 
(251) she is called 'Celestial Dian, goddess argentine.' The 
latter epithet may have been suggested by 'argentea Cynthia' 
of Ovid, Her. 18. 71. 

In As 3. 2. 2 Orlando appeals to the 'thrice-crowned 
queen of night,' alluding to her threefold character as 
Hecate, Diana, Luna. Though the phrase 'thrice-crowned' 
seems to have no exact classical equivalent, we find 'Per 
triplicis vultus arcanaque sacra Dianas' in Ovid, Her. 12. 79, 
and 'diva triformis,' Met. 7. 177, and in ^n. 4. 511 'tria 
virginis ora Dianse.' Singer has noticed that Chapman 
speaks of her 'triple forehead' in Hymnus in Cynthiam 

(1594)- 

As an infernal deity, Hecate, she is alluded to in the fol- 
lowing passages: Mids. 5. i. 391; Hml. 3. 2. 269; Mcb. 
2. I. 52 ; 3. 2. 41 ; 3. 5 ; Lr. i. i. 112 ; H6A 3. 2. 64. The 
ancients thought of Hecate first as a moon-goddess, then as 
a divinity of the infernal regions, and, lastly, as a natural 
development of these two ideas, as patroness of witches. 
That Shakespeare was acquainted with all of these concep- 



J 



54 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

tions, is shown by one of the witch scenes in Mcb. (3. 5), 
where she appears as queen of witches, and in the course of 
her long- speech suggests her infernal character by an invi- 
tation to meet her 'at the pit of Acheron,' and her connec- 
tion with the moon by the lines : 

Upon the corner of the moon 

There hangs a vaporous drop profound ; 

I'll catch it ere it comes to ground. 

Her connection with witchcraft, though found in many 
Latin authors (notably Seneca, Mcdca), is perhaps to be 
traced to the incantation of Medea in Met. 7. 1-293. Thus 
in translating Met. 7. 74-75, Golding reads : 

She went me to an altar that was dedicate of olde 

To Perseys daughter Hecate (of whom the witches holde 

As of their goddesse). 

The passage in parentheses is Golding's interpolation. This 
conception of Hecate as mistress of witchcraft is further 
illustrated by Hml. 3. 2. 269, Mcb. 2. i. 52, and perhaps Lr. 
2. I. 41 where Edgar is described as standing in the dark, 

his sharp sword out, 
Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon 
To stand auspicious mistress. 

In H6A 3. 2. 64, the supposed witch, Jeanne d'Arc, is called 
by Talbot a 'railing Hecate.' 

There are two passages in which Hecate is thought of 
merely as representative of darkness or night. The three 
notions of Hecate mentioned above are all suggestive of 
darkness, and already in Ovid we find the name of Hecate 
associated with that of Nox. For example, in the enchant- 
ment of Circe in Met. 14. 403-405 w"e read : 

Ilia nocens spargit virus sucosque veneni, 

Et Noctem Noctisque deos Ereboque Chaoque 

Convocat, et longis Hecaten ululatibus orat. 

That this association was present to Shakespeare's mind also 
may be shown from Lear's solemn adjuration (i. i. 112) : 

For, by the sacred radiance of the sun. 
The mysteries of Hecate, and the night. 



Diana 55 

From close association it is only a short step to confusion 
and virtual identification, and this step has, I think, been 
taken in the following passage of Mcb. (3. 2. 40-43) : 

Ere the bat hath flown 
His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons 
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums 
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done 
A deed of dreadful note. 

There is no reference here to the witch-queen of the dramatis 
persona ; in plain prose, Macbeth means to say that before 
the night is over Banquo and Fleance will have been mur- 
dered. It has puzzled the commentators to explain why 
Hecate's name is introduced at all, and why she should be 
called 'black,' an epithet obviously inappropriate for a moon- 
divinity. It is possible, of course, to consider 'black' as 
equivalent to malignant, as in the phrases 'black magician' 
(R3. I. 2. 34), and 'black fate' (Rom. 3. i. 124) ; but this 
still leaves the first question unanswered. All difficulty is 
removed if we admit that Shakespeare is using the name 
Hecate as equivalent with Night. There is one more pas- 
sage which seems to confirm this view in the closing scene 
of Mids.: 

Now it is the time of night, 

That the graves, all gaping wide, 
Every one lets forth his sprite, 

In the church-way paths to glide : 
And we fairies, that do run 

By the triple Hecate's team, 
From the presence of the sun. 

Following darkness like a dream. 
Now are frolic. 

If Hecate is the moon, with what appropriateness can those 
who run by her team be said to follow darkness ! If on the 
other hand, Hecate means only night, or darkness, the incon- 
sistency immediately disappears. 

But what is the team of triple Hecate by which the fairies 
run ? Ovid mentions no team as belonging to Hecate, but 



56 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

he does tell us in Met. 7. 219 (so Seneca, Med. 1023; cf. 
Euripides, Med. 1321) that Medea's prayer to Hecate is 
answered by the descent of a dragon-drawn car in which 
Medea is carried aloft, and Shakespeare's contemporaries, 
if not Shakespeare himself, ascribed a dragon-yoke to 
Hecate. (Cf. Marlowe, Hero and Leander i. 103; Dray- 
ton, The Man in the Moon (about 100 lines from the end) ; 
Milton, // Penseroso 59, and In Ohitnm Prcesidis Eliensis 
56.) These facts seem to warrant us in asserting that 'triple 
Hecate's team' is a team of dragons, and that the phrase is 
the exact equivalent of 'night's swift dragons,' in Mids. 3. 2. 
379. (Cf. s. V. Night.) Golding uses the phrase 'triple 
Hecate' twice in his translation of Met. 7, as equivalent to 
the 'triformis dese' of 11. 94-5, and the 'triceps Hecate' of 
1. 194. 

With the lines from Lr. (i. i. 112) quoted above we may 
compare Dido's lament in ^n. 4. 607-609 : 

Sol, qui terrarum flammis opera omnia lustras, 
Tuque harum interpres curarum et conscia luno 
Nocturnisque Hecate triviis ululata per urbes. 

Dictynna. — LLL 4. 2. 2,7, 38. See Diana. 

j/ Dido. — Mids. i. i. 173; Rom. 2. 4. 43; Merch. 5. i. 10; Hml. 2. 2. 

468; Ant. 4. 14. 53; Tp. 2. I. y6, 78, 81, 100, loi; Tit. 2. 3. 22; 
S. 3. 82; H6B 3. 2. 117; Shr. i. i. 159. 

The story of Dido in ^n. I-IV must have been familiar 
to Shakespeare from his boyhood. The allusions are 
numerous and substantially accurate. Twice the allusion is 
to the story of Troy's fall related by ^neas at her request, 
ySn. 2. (Hml. 2. 2. 468; Tit. 5. 3. 82). In ySn. i. 720-722 
Cupid, having assumed the form of Ascanius, is fondled by 
Dido, and 'little by little essays to blot out the remembrance 
of Sichasus, and with a living passion to preoccupy a heart 
long dead to love.' This would seem to be the authority for 
H6B 3. 2. 117: 

To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did 
When he to madding Dido would unfold 
His father's acts commenced in burning Troy. 



Dictynna—Dido 57 

In Shr. I, I. 159 we have mention of Anna as her confidante. 
Cf. ^n. 4. passim. The episode in the cave, where she and 
yEneas took refuge during a thunder storm {^n. 4. 165- 
172) is mentioned in Tit. 2. 3. 22. 

There are two alkisions to her abandonment by ^neas, 
which represent different versions of the story. In Mids. 
I. I. 173: 

And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen, 
When the false Troyan under sail was seen, 

we have a reference to ^n. 5. i. seq. The Hnes in Merch. 
5. I. 10 present more difficulty: 

In such a night (i. e. moonlight) 
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand 
Upon the wild sea banks and waft her love 
To come again to Carthage. 

Matthew Arnold in his Celtic Literature, p. 128, has noticed 
the peculiarly modern, unclassical tone of this picture. 
There is nothing to correspond to it in Vergil, though Dido's 
letter to ^neas in Ovid, Her. 7, contains several references 
to the wild sea, and is a passionate appeal for his return. 
The true source for the lines is to be found, Malone sug- 
gested, in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women 2189 ff. : 

And to the stronde bar-fot faste she wente. 
And cryed, 'Theseus ! myn herte swete !' 

The holwe rokkes answerde her again ; 
No man she saw, and yit shyned the mone, 
And hye upon a rokke she wente sone, 
And saw his barge sailing in the see. 

Her kerchef on a pole up stikked she, 
Ascaunce that he sholde hit wel y-see. 
And him remembre that she was behinde, 
And turne again, and on the stronde her finde. 

Chaucer's lines are in turn closely modelled on Ovid, Her. 
10, and there is no reason to suppose that Shakespeare had 
Chaucer in mind rather than Ovid. In either case, Shake- 
speare has changed the application from Ariadne to Dido. 



58 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

In Ant. 4. 14. 53 Antony says that when he and Cleopatra 
come to Elysium, 

Dido and her ^neas shall want troops. 
And all the haunt be ours. 

i. e. Dido and zEneas will no longer be the most conspicuous 
pair of lovers. The allusions in Rom. and Tp. are playful. 

Diomed. — H6C 4. 2. 19; Troil. passim. 

His participation in the capture of Rhesus' steeds is men- 
tioned in H6C (see Ulysses). The conception of the char- 
acter in Troil. is taken from Caxton and from Chaucer. 

Dis. — Tp. 4. I. 89; Wint. 4. 4. 118. See Pluto. 

Echo. — Rom. 2. 2. 162; Tit. 2. 3. 17. 

In the balcony scene of Rom., Juliet says : 

Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies, 

And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine. 

With repetition of my Romeo's name. 

The story of Echo and Narcissus is told in Met. 3. 339 seq. 
In 11. 393-94 we read : 

Spreta latct silvis, pudibundaque frondibus ora 
Protegit, et solis ex illo vivit in antris. 

and in 397-98: 

Et in aera sucus 
Corporis omnis abit. 

In Tit. the poet speaks of 'the babbling echo.' This is the 
'vocalis nymphe' of Met. 3. 357, rendered by Golding (p. 
36b), 

A babling Nymph that Echo hight. 

Shakespeare, though acquainted with the story of Nar- 
cissus, never connects him with Echo. 

Elysium. — See Hades. 



Diomed — Fame 59 

Enceladus. — Tit. 4. 2. 93. 

Enceladus is the giant who, warring against the gods, was 
struck by a thunderbolt, and imprisoned under ^tna. 
{Mn. 3. 578,) He is mentioned with Hercules and Mars 
as a mighty man of war. 

Erebus.— See Hades. 

Europa.— H4B 2. 2. 193; Wiv. 5- 5- 4; Ado S- 4- 45; Troil. 5. i. 59; 
Wint. 4. 4. 27; Shr. i. i. 174. See Jupiter. 

Fame (Report, Rumor). 

Under these names is personified that mysterious power 
which seems to disseminate the news of any great occur- 
rence, mingling truth with falsehood. Most vivid is the 
personification in H4B, Induction, where Rumor enters, 
'painted full of tongues,' and gives a lying report of the 
battle of Shrewsbury. For this the ultimate source is to be 
found in Mn. 4. 174-188, where Vergil describes Rumor as 
'a monster frightful, huge; who, for every feather of her 
body, has as many wakeful eyes beneath, (wondrous to tell) 
as many loud tongues and mouths, as many ears that she 
pricks up to listen.' The conception is, of course, a very 
common one among Shakespeare's contemporaries : cf. the 
paraphrase of the Vergilian passage in Jonson's Poetaster 
5. I. Similar, though much less elaborate, are the 'Lady 
Fame' of Ado 2. i. 221, 'my gossip Report' of Merch. 3. i. 7, 
and also K. J. 4. 2. 123 ; Per. 3. prol. 22. An explicit allu- 
sion to the O vidian 'house of Fame' {Met. 12. 39-63) is 
found in Tit. 2. i. 126. Though, 

The palace full of tongues, of eyes, and ears, 

seems to suggest ^n. 4. 174-188 quoted above. Cf. also 
Chaucer's Hous of Fame. Not to be confused with Fame 
m this sense are the numerous personifications of fame as 
glory, reputation— such, for example, as Troil. 3. 3. 210; 
4. 5- 143- 



6o Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Fate (Destiny, Destinies, Necessity). 

Shakespeare's conception of Fate or Destiny is philosoph- 
ical rather than mythological. An irresistible power gov- 
erning the lives of men, overruling their wishes and desires 
(Mids. 3. 2. 92 ; Wint. 4. 4. 46), and even thwarting Nature 
(Ven. 733) ; not necessarily hostile, but 'sharp' and inexora- 
ble (Ant. 4. 14. 135; Ado 4. I. 116) — this is Shakespeare's 
conception of Fate in all periods of his work. It is part of 
Macbeth's curse that he 'shall spurn fate,' thus opposing 
himself to the laws of the universe. There is no attempt to 
theologize about it. It is neither identified with nor opposed 
to divine omnipotence; the exact relation between fate 
and man's free will is nowhere definitely fixed. To Shake- 
speare, Fate stands for an intervention, mysterious, inexpli- 
cable. From Ariel's mouth we learn (Tp. 3. 3. 53) that the 
forces of nature are but an instrument for performing the 
decrees of Destiny. 

Shakespeare is familiar with the late Roman conception 
of the three fates expressed in the Latin Anthology i. 792, 
ed. Riese : 

Tres sunt fatales quae ducunt fila sorores : 

Clotho colum baiulat, Lachesis trahit, Atropos occat. 

That these verses were common in Shakespeare's time we 
know on the authority of ' E. K.' in his gloss on Spenser's 
Shep. Cal. November: 'The fatall sisters, Clotho, Lachesis, 
and Atropos, daughters of Herebus and the Nighte, whom 
the Poetes fayne to spinne the life of man, as it were a long 
threde, which they drawe out in length, till his fatal howre 
and timely death be come ; but if by other casualtie his 
dayes be abridged, then one of them, that is, Atropos, is 
sayde to have cut the threde in twain. Hereof commeth 
a common verse. "Clotho colum, etc." ' Cf. also Peele's 
Arraignment of Paris 5. i. 128. But this mythological 
treatment occurs seriously only three times, K. J. 4. 2. 91 ; 
R2. I. 2. 15 ; Per. i. 2. 108. It is parodied twice by Pistol, 
(H4B 2, 4. 213, where Atropos is named, and H5. 5. i. 21) 



Fate — Fortune 6i 

in the most absurd way, and again in the play of the mechan- 
icals in Mids. (5. i. 290, 343) where Shakespeare is laugh- 
ing at an old play. In Merch. 2. 2. 65 Launcelot Gobbo 
refers to 'the Sisters Three and such branches of learning.' 
Perhaps Shakespeare is satirizing the frequent references to 
the Fates in such dramas as those of Peele. 

Flora. — Wint. 4. 4. 2. 

Florizel calls Perdita 'no shepherdess, but Flora Peering 
in April's front.' Shakespeare has taken this over from 
Dorastiis and Faivnia, the main source of Wint. : 'She 
defended her face from the heat of the sunne with no other 
vale, but with a garland made of bowes and flowers ; which 
attire became her so gallantly as shee seemed to bee the 
Goddesse Flora her selfe for beauty.' Shak. Lib. Pt. I. Vol. 
4. p. 49. 

Fortune. 

Fortune, a personification, half m3'thological, half philo- 
sophical, of the unstable, irresponsible power which seems 
to govern the happiness of men, furthering or defeating their 
plans, is to be found frequently in Shakespeare. To the 
Greeks and Romans she was a divinity, to Dante one of the 
divine Intelligences {Inf. 7. 6yfi.), to Shakespeare a half- 
personified abstraction with many of the attributes of the 
Roman Fortuna. Shakespeare's treatment of her is to be 
compared with his treatment of Fate, a conception which 
at times resembles closely that of Fortune, save that the 
interpositions of Fate imply a preordained plan, while those 
of Fortune are purely capricious. At least half of the pas- 
sages in which fortune is mentioned are general, indefinite, 
and without significance. At times she is regarded as a 
hostile, at times a beneficent power, at times her changeable- 
ness is the point emphasized. In the remaining instances 
we find epithets or attributes which furnish a point of attack. 
While it is impossible to prove any definite indebtedness, it 
is possible to say which of these conceptions are classic and 
which are not. 



62 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Classical art represented Fortuna most commonly as a 
woman standing, in the left hand holding a cornucopia, in 
the right a ship's rudder resting on a globe — the cornucopia 
representing her favors, the rudder her directing power, 
and the globe her changeableness. On her head is a high 
helmet. (See Roscher, s. v. Fortuna.) Such representa- 
tions with various modifications may well have been familiar 
to Shakespeare in tapestries or in emblem-books. Thus 
H4B 4. 4. 103, 

Will Fortune never come with both hands full, 

is suggestive of the cornucopia in one hand only. And in 
Cymb. 4. 3. 46, 

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer'd, 

there is possible allusion to the rudder. In Hml. 2. 2. 233, 

Happy, in that we are not over-happy; 

On Fortune's cap we are not the very button, 

the allusion is less convincing. The globe or wheel of For- 
tune early found its way into literature. In Ovid, Pont. 
2. 3. 56, she is spoken of as 'Stans in orbe Dea.' Other pas- 
sages are Cicero, Pis. 10, and without direct mention of For- 
tune, Horace, Od. 3. 10. 10. In mediseval literature the 
wheel is a common attribute. For illustration the reader 
is referred to Dante, Inf. 7. 218; Marie de France, Lais, 
Guigcmar 538; Cursor Miindi 32719; Chaucer, Fortune 
46; Gower, Conf. Am. i. 2624. With Shakespeare's con- 
temporaries the idea is also familiar. In Whitney's Choice 
of Euihlcnis (1586), p. 181, Occasion is represented as stand- 
ing with her left foot resting on the hub of a wheel which 
she is whirling about with her right foot. Shakespeare's 
allusions are as follows: Lucr. 952; H5. 3. 6. 28; As i. 2. 
33 ; Lr. 2. 2. 180; 5. 3. 174; Ant. 4. 15. 44; H6C 4. 3. 46. 
In As and Ant. she is also spoken of as a 'housewife,' which 
would seem to suggest that, either playfully or otherwise, the 
wheel is thought of as a spinning-wheel. It is quite probable 
that Rosalind should make the error in sport ; that Cleo- 



Fortune 63 

patra should do so while Antony is dying seems less prob- 
able. In H5. 5. I. 85 Pistol says: 

Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now, 

which might suggest that in all three of these passages 
housewife = 'hussy, a light woman,' and that there is no 
thought whatever of the spinning-wheel. That Shake- 
speare understood the significance of the wheel is shown by 
Fluelen's dissertation to Pistol in H5. 3. 6. 34: 'She is 
painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the 
moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and muta- 
bility, and variation ; and her foot, look you, is fixed upon 
a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls.' 

In H5, 3. 6. 29; As I. 2. 36, she is spoken of as blind. 
For this we have the authority of Cicero, La:l. 15, and Pliny, 
A^. H. 2. 5. 7. She is also blind in Chaucer, Fortune 50. 
Classical authority for the phrase 'Lady Fortune,' As 2. 7. 
16 ; Wint. 4. 4. 51 ; Per. 4. 4. 48 ; (cf. also K. J. 3. i. 118) is 
to be found in the epithet 'domina' of Cicero, Mar cell. 2. 
The phrase 'bountiful Fortune' of As i. 2. 38; Tp. i. 2. 178, 
finds a parallel in Statins, Silv. 6. 68. 

Other conceptions seem distinctly modern. She is called 
'strumpet' or 'whore' in K. J. 3. i. 52 ; Hml. 2. 2. 240, 515 ; 
Mcb. I. 2. 15 ; Lr. 2. 4. 52. Perhaps purelv Elizabethan are 
Hml. 3. I. 58: 

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

and similar expressions in Tit. 2. 1.2; Per. 3. 3. 6. So too 
we should consider the allegory of the Poet in Tim. (i. i. 

63 ff.): 

Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill 
Feign'd Fortune to be throned ; etc. 

In three passages, K. J. 3. i. 52; Wiv. 3. 3. 69; As i. 2. 
40 ff ., an antithesis is expressed between Fortune and Nature 
which is summed up by Rosalind in the words : 

Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature. 



64 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

i. e. Fortune does not determine our physical appearance. 
(See Nature.) 

In As 2. 7. 19 we have an alhision to the proverb 'Fortuna 
favet fatuis.' 

Furies.— Err. 4. 2. 35; Mids. 5. i. 289; R3. i. 4. 57; H4B 5. 3. no; 
Ado I. I. 193; Alls 5. 3. 261; Ant. 2. 5. 40; Tit. 5. 2. 82. 

Shakespeare is quite ignorant of the Eumenides of the 
Greek tragedians, the personified stingings of conscience. 
Vergil mentions the Furies among the other infernal 
machinery of the sixth ^neid, and to Shakespeare they are 
merely fiends, or devils. Thus in R3 Clarence dreams that 
he has gone to hell, and that some one cried : 

Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torments. 

Parolles in Alls mentions Satan, Limbo, and Furies together ; 
and in Ado, Benedick says that Beatrice is 'possessed with 
a fury.' In Err. the sheriff's officer is called 'A fiend, a 
fury, pitiless and rough.' More distinctly Vergilian is the 
allusion in Ant. : 

Thou shouldst come like a Fury crown'd with snakes. 

Alecto is thus described in ^n. 7. 346. Pistol, in one of his 
ranting speeches, H4B 5. 5. 39, mentions 'fell Alecto's 
snake.' 

Only in Tit. is there any thought of the Furies as aveng- 
ers of crime, where Tamora, masquerading as Revenge, 
is addressed by Titus as 'dread Fury.' The identification 
of the furies with the fiends of the Christian hell is common 
to Shakespeare's contemporaries. 

Ganymede. — As i. 3. 127. See Jupiter. 

Golden Age. — Lucr. 60; As i. i. 125; Tp. 2. i. 168. 

These are merely allusions. If a source is needed it may 
be found in Met. i. 89 seq. The phrase 'golden world' in 
As is paralleled by Golding p. i88b. 

Gorgon. — Mcb. 2. 3. 77; Ant. 2. 5. 116. See Perseus. 



Furies — Hades 65 

Hades. {Under this head are discussed Erebus, Tartarus, Elysium 
and Acheron, Cocytus, Lethe, Styx.) 

The name Hades is nowhere mentioned by Shakespeare, 
and nowhere is any comprehensive description of it given. 
His conception of the region, so far as it was at all definite, 
must be gathered from his frequent use of the names men- 
tioned above. Mn. 6 is, of course, the main ultimate source. 

Erebus is mentioned three times: Merch. 5. i. 87; 
H4B 2. 4. 169; Caes. 2. I. 84. Originally Erebus is a per- 
sonification of darkness (cf. Hesiod, Theog. 123), but even 
in Homer it is used as a name for the lower regions (//. 8. 
368), and this is the sense in which, with one exception, it 
is used by Vergil. The notion of darkness clings to it in 
such passages as ^n. 4. 26 ; 6. 404, and Shakespeare uses 
as epithets 'dim' and 'dark.' It is to him a type of darkness. 
The O vidian notion is similar, cf. Met. 10. 76 ; 14. 404. Pis- 
tol's use of the word in H4B has been referred by Malone 
to a passage in Peele's Battle of Alcazar (1594), Act 4. 

Tartarus.— Err. 4. 2. 32 ; H5. 2. 2. 123 ; Tw. 2. 5. 225 
(always in the form 'Tartar'). The location of Tartarus 
within the infernal regions is not specified by Shakespeare. 
The passage in Err., however, shows that he knew it to be 
the worst part of hell. The ultimate source is Mn. 6. 548- 
627. 'Vasty Tartar' of H5 may be referred to 11. 577-579 : 

Turn Tartarus ipse 
Bis patet in prasceps tantum, tenditque sub umbras, 
Quantus ad setherium caeli suspectus Olympum. 

The mention of legions a few lines below, 

And tell the legions 'I can never win,' 
suggests a Biblical reminiscence. 

'To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit' 
in Tw. may be only another way of saying 'To hell-gate.' 
The gate of Tartarus is, however, specifically mentioned by 
Vergil in 1. 552. 

Elysium.— Ven. 600; Gent. 2. 7. 38; H5. 4. i. 291; 
Tw. I. 2. 4; Troil. 3. 2. 12; Ant. 4. 14. 51 ; Cymb. 5. 4. 97;' 



66 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

H6B 3. 2, 399; H6C I. 2. 30. Elysium, the abode of the 
blest, is described in ^n. 6. 637-659. Most of Shakespeare's 
references are without significance, Elysium being equiva- 
lent to Paradise. Of more significance, however, are Troil., 
Ant., and Cymb. In Ant. we read : 

Stay for me: 
Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand, 

and in Troil. : 

O, be thou my Charon, 
And give me swift transportance to those fields 
Where I may wallow in the lily-beds 
Proposed for the deserver. 

(Spoken by Troilus to Pandar.) 

Again in Cymb. : 

Poor shadows of Elysium, hence, and rest 
Upon your never-withering banks of flowers. 

In each case, then, where Elysium is described the flowers 
are given chief prominence. Now Vergil, though mention- 
ing 'the smiling lawns of happy groves' and 'the fragrant 
bay-trees,' and saying that the ghosts 'dwell in the shady 
woods, and haunt the couches that the river-banks afiford, 
and the meadows that the fountains freshen,' does not men- 
tion any flowers ; but in the Homeric Hades the spirits pass 
'along the mead of asphodel,' Od. 11. 539, and the asphodel 
is a species of lily. (In yS;i. 6. 883 Anchises says 'give me 
handfuls of lilies,' which implies that they grew in Vergil's 
Elysian Fields also.) 

Acheron. — Mids. 3. 2. 357; Mcb. 3. 5. 15; Tit. 4. 3. 
44. Vergil's description of Acheron is not minute, and 
Shakespeare does not seem very sure what it is. Thus in 
Mcb. we have 'the pit of Acheron,' and in Tit. it is appar- 
ently a 'burning lake.' In Mids. the heaven is covered 

With drooping fog as black as Acheron. 

^n. 6. 107 is perhaps responsible for the last : 'Tenebrosa 
palus Acheronte refuso.' The phrase 'pit of Acheron' in 



Hades 67 

Mcb, is apparently applied by the witches to some tarn near 
the scene of the action. 

CocYTUS. — Mentioned only in Tit. 2. 3. 236 : 

As hateful as Cocytus' misty mouth. 

Cocytus is mentioned by Vergil in JEn. 6. 323 et alibi. 

Lethe.— R3. 4. 4. 250; H4B 5. 2. 72; Tw. 4. i. 66; iX 
Hml. I. 5. 33 ; Ant. 2. i. 2y ; 2. 7. 114. The river of forget- 
fulness is described in ^n. 6. 703-723, but of course the idea 
is a familiar one. Twice Shakespeare uses the word as a 
synonym of forgetfulness : 

Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep. 

Tw. 4. I. 66, also Ant. 2. 7. 114. Similar to this is the 
adjectival use in Ant. 2. i. 27: 'a Lethe'd dulness.' The 
allusions in R3 and H4B would indicate that Shakespeare 
thinks of Lethe as 'washing' away or 'drowning' memory. 
In Vergil it is by drinking of the water that the souls win 
oblivion. But in the Divine Comedy, Piirg. 31. loi, Bea- 
trice submerges Dante in Lethe up to the head so that he 
may in that way swallow some of the water. The immer- 
sion is made more prominent than the drinking. Special 
difficulty is given by the passage in Hml. ; the Ghost says 

to Hamlet : 

I find thee apt; 
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed 
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, 
Wouldst thou not stir in this. 

The editors give no satisfactory explanation. Tschisch- 
witz says the 'fat weed' must be asphodel and quotes Lucian 
(nepi TievOovi s) who speaks of asphodel in somewhat 
remote connection with Lethe. Steevens quotes an inter- 
esting parallel from Beaumont and Fletcher's Humorous 
Lieutenant 4. 3 : 

This dull root, plucked from Lethe flood, 
Purges all pure thoughts and good. 

Here the context shows that the 'dull root' has baleful 
magic powers. If Shakespeare had any particular plant in 



68 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

mind, I think I can show that it is the poppy. Both Ovid 
and Vergil connect the poppy with Lethe. Thus in describ- 
ing the house of sleep, Met. ii. 602-605 : 

Saxo tamen exit ab imo 
Rivus aquse Lethes, per quem cum murmure labens 
Invitat somnos crepitantibus unda lapillis. 
Ante fores antri fecunda papavera florent ; 

and in Met. 7. 152 Jason sprinkles the dragon 'with the iuce 
of certaine herbes from Lethey River sent,' which are of 
soporific virtue. Vergil speaks of 'Lethaea papavera' in 
Georg. 4. 545, and 'Lethseo perfusa papavera somno' in 
Georg. I. 78. If Shakespeare was thinking of the poppy, 
then 'fat weed' would mean a weed which makes 'fat' or 
'dull.' For similar prolepsis cf. 'The insane root That takes 
the reason prisoner,' Mcb. i. 3. 84, or 'Not poppy, nor man- 
dragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the east.' Oth. 3. 3. 
330. ('Wharf = shore, bank, the only sense in which 
Shakespeare uses the word.) 

Styx. — R3. i. 4. 46; Troil. 3. 2. 10; 5. 4. 20; Tit. i. 
I. 88; 2. I. 135. In Troil. 3 we read: 

No, Pandarus; I stalk about her door, 
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks 
Staying for waffsage. O, be thou my Charon; 

and in Tit. i : 

Why sufifer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet, 
To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx? 

InR3: 

(My soul) pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood. 
With that grim ferryman which poets write of. 

The conception expressed in these passages is found in ^n. 
6. 295-336. The Latin 'Per Styga, per manes vehor' of 
Tit. 2. I. 135 is an inexact quotation of Seneca, Hip poly tus 
1 180: 

Per Styga, per amnes igneos amens sequar, 

spoken by Phaedra longing to see the face of her loved 
Hippolytus. 



Harpy — Hecuba 69 

Harpy.— Ado 2. i. 279; Tp. 3. 3. 53 din, 83; Per, 4. 3. 46. 

Of these passages the most important is the stage direction 
in Tp. : 'Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel, like a harpy ; 
claps his wings upon the table ; and, with a quaint device, 
the banquet vanishes.' This is evidently suggested by ^n. 

3. 219-267, where the Harpies defile the banquet of ^neas 
and his companions. The clapping of Ariel's wings is the 
'magnis quatiunt clangoribus alas' of 1. 226. The thunder 
and lightning is that which accompanies many exhibitions 
of the supernatural in Shakespeare. 

In Ado, Benedick playfully calls Beatrice a harpy, imply- 
ing that she is both beautiful and malignant. 

The allusion in Per. is explained by ^n. 3. 217. Steevens 
thinks that 'Harpier' of Mcb. 4. i. 3 is a spelling of Harpy. 

Hecate. — See Diana. 

Hector. — LLL 5. 2. passim; Lucr. 1430; i486; Wiv. i. 3. 12; 
2. 3. 35; Ado 2. 3. 196; Ant. 4. 8. 7; Cor. i. 3. 44; i. 8. 11; 
Tit. 4. I. 88; H6A 2. 3. 20; H6C 2. i. 51; 4. 8. 25; Troil. 
passim. 

The character of Hector in Troil. is a very pleasing one ; 
he is brave and honorable ; his 'patience is as a virtue fixed,' 
I. 2. 4; he is generous, and ready to spare a fallen enemy, 

4. 5. 189. This is the conception of Caxton in every detail. 
(Seep. 543. etc.) 

In Lucr. he marches out to field, and later 'faints.' In Cor. 
he is the son of Hecuba, and a soldier. In all the other allu- 
sions he is a mere name, a type of valor and martial prowess. 

Four times, Lucr. 1430; Tit. 4. i. 88; H6C 2. i. 51 ; 4. 8. 
25, he is called 'the hope of Troy.' ^neas addresses him 
in Mn. 2. 281 as 

O lux Dardanise ! spes O fidissima Teucrum ! 

Hecuba.— Lucr. 1447; 1485; Hml. 2. 2. 523, 584; Cor. i. 3. 43; ^"^ 
Cymb. 4. 2. 313; Tit. i. i. 136; 4. i. 20. 

In Lucr. and Hml. the reference is to Hecuba's grief at 
the death of Priam (see Priam). In Cor. she is mentioned 



70 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

as the mother of Hector. The remaining references are to 
her fortunes after the fall of Troy, as contained in Met. 13. 
439-575. Carried into captivity by the victor Greeks, she 
witnesses the death of her daughter Polyxena, and dis- 
covers that her son Polydorus has been treacherously mur- 
dered by the Thracian king, Polymnestor. ]\Iad with sorrow, 
she beguiles Polymnestor into a secret place and tears out 
his eyes, and, while railing at the Greeks, is metamorphosed 
into a bitch. In Cymb., Imogen, seeing what she supposes 
to be the murdered body of her husband, says to Pisanio : 

All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks, 
And mine to boot, be darted on thee ! 

In Tit. 4. the allusion is also to her 'running mad for sorrow.' 
In Tit. I. we read : 

The self-same gods that arm'd the Queen of Troy 
With opportunity of sharp revenge 
Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent. 

This agrees with Ovid's story except that there the revenge 
is taken not in Polymnestor's tent, but in a secret place to 
which Hecuba has lured him (in secreta, 1. 555). In the 
Hecuba of Euripides the scene takes place not in Polym- 
nestor's tent, but in Hecuba's. It is not impossible that the 
story of Jael and Sisera might have influenced the author's 
memory. Could he perhaps have misread the following 
lines of Golding (p. i68a and b) : 

Queene Hecubee too Polymnestor went 

The cursed murtherer, and desyrde his presence too thent ent 
Too shew too him a masse of gold (so made shee hir pretence) 
Which for hir lyttle Polydore was hyd not farre from thence. 
The Thracian king beleeving hir, as eager of the pray, 
Went with hir too a secret place. 

In the edition of 1575, which I have used, the phrase 
'thentent' (=the entent) is printed as above. It seems to 
me not inconceivable that it should be misread 'the tent,' 
a substitution which would make good enough sense. 



Helen — Hercules 71 

Helen.— Mids. 5. i. n; 5. i. 200; Lucr. 1369, I47i ; Rom. 2. 4. 
44; H4B 5. 5. 35; As 3- 2. 153; Alls I. 3. 74; Sonn. 53. 7; 
H6C 2. 2. 146; Shr. I. 2. 244; Troil. passim. 

Helen is a type of beauty, Mids. 5. i. 11; Rom.; As; 
Sonn. ; a type of falseness, As ; H6C. She is mentioned as 
causing the Trojan war in Lucr. and Alls. In Shr. she is 
called 'fair Leda's daughter,' and is said to have had a 
thousand wooers. Paris addresses her as 'Ledaea' in the 
first line of his epistle to her. Her. 15. i, and in the course 
of this and the following epistle the story of her mother is 
adverted to. In Her. 16. 104 she boasts of her thousand 
suitors. In Mids. 5. i. 200 she is a type of fidelity, but the 
coupling of her name with that of 'Limander' shows that 
the mechanicals have confused her with Hero. 

I shall not attempt here a discussion of the Helen of Troil. 

Hercules (Alcides). 

If Shakespeare's allusions to Hercules are extraordinarily 
numerous, his definite knowledge of the myth is exceed- 
ingly scanty. This knowledge consists: first, of general 
impressions gathered from conversation and miscellaneous 
reading; second, of more accurate knowledge gained from 
Ovid's incomplete version of the myth, and possibly from 
the English translation of Seneca. 

Thus a large proportion of the allusions refer to Hercules 
merely as a type of valor and strength — 'as valiant as Her- 
cules,' 'as strong as Hercules.' 'To see great Hercules 
whipping a gig,' LLL 4. 3. 167, is an example of incon- 
gruity. When in As i. 2. 222 Rosalind says to Orlando 
about to wrestle with Charles : 'Now Hercules be thy speed, 
young man,' she may have been thinking of the wrestling 
bout between Hercules and Achelous, Met. 9. 31 seq. 

The twelve labors are referred to in a general way in Ado 
2. I. 380; Cor. 4. I. 17; Shr. i. 2. 257; that they were 
imposed by Juno seems to be implied by Alls 3. 4. 13, but 
there is no allusion to Eurystheus, nor to the reason for 
their imposition. Of the labors only four are alluded to in 
detail. 



72 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

(i) The Nemean lion is referred to in LLL 4. i, 90; 
Hml. I. 4. 83 as a type of ferocity. In K, J. 2, i, 144 
Alcides is spoken of as wearing a lion's skin (a fact Shake- 
speare might have learned from Met. 9. 113, or from pic- 
torial representations). But the killing of the lion is not 
referred to, unless humorously in Bottom's assertion: 'I 
could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in.' Mids. 
I. 2. 31. 

(2) The Hydra is mentioned or alluded to six times, but 
never with any reference to Hercules. Thus we have 'as 
many mouths as Hydra,' Oth. 2. 3. 308; 'Hydra-headed 
wilfulness,' H5. i. i. 35; Hydra as a name for the many- 
headed mob. Cor. 3. i. 93 (and by allusion H4B Ind. 18) ; 
'They grow like Hydra's heads,' H4A 5. 4. 25 ; and in 
H4B 4- 2. 38 : 

Whereon this Hydra son of war is born ; 

Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep 

With grant of our most just and right desires. 

where there is, apparently, confusion with the story of Argus. 
The Hydra is described in Met. 9. 70 seq. 

(3) The apples of the Hesperides. Shakespeare's acquaint- 
ance with this labor is not very accurate. In LLL 4. 3. 340 
we read: 

For valor, is not Love a Hercules, 
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? 

It has been noticed that here and in Per. i. i. 27 'the Hes- 
perides' is considered the name of the garden, whereas the 
Hesperides were really the custodians of the garden. More- 
over in LLL and in Cor. 4. 6. 99 Hercules gathers the fruit 
himself ; while, according to the myth, he sent Atlas to do 
it for him. It was during Atlas' errand that Hercules bore 
/ his burden for him. Hamlet asks (2. 2. 378), 'Do the boys 
(players) carry it away?' 'Ay, that they do, my lord;' 
Rosencrantz answers, 'Hercules and his load too.' As 
Steevens suggested, this is doubtless an allusion to the figure 
of Hercules bearing the earth, which was the sign of the 



Hercules 73 

Globe theatre. The dragon which guarded the apples is 
mentioned in Per. 

(4) The capture of Cerberus. In the Masque of the Nine 
Worthies, LLL 5. 2. 592, the pedant, Holofernes, says : 

Great Hercules is presented by this imp, 

Whose dub kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canis. 

Holofernes is, of course, wrong. Hercules dragged Cer- 
berus up to the light (see Met. 7. 415), but sent him back 
alive. 

In the same masque, LLL 5. i. 41 iff. ; 5. 2. 595, Moth 
presents Hercules strangling serpents. The incident might 
have been learned from Ovid, Her. 9. 21-22 or Met. 9. 6y, 
which Golding translates : Tt is my cradle game To van- 
quish snakes.' 

In Merch, 3. 2. 55 Portia refers in detail to the deliver- 
ance of Hesione {Met. 11. 199 seq.). In Ovid there is no 
hint of the Dardanian wives who stand aloof. 

With bleared visages, come forth to view 
The issue of the exploit; 

but in Ovid's account of the similar adventure of Andro- 
meda, Met. 4. 663 seq., her father and mother stand weeping. 

Hercules in love with Omphale is mentioned in LLL i. 2. 
69, and probably also in Ado 2. i. 261 ; 3. 3. 145. The last 
passage suggests that the subject was a favorite one in 
tapestry. Shakespeare may have been familiar with Ovid, 
Her. 9, though Omphale is not mentioned by name. 

The attempt made by the Centaur Nessus to ravish 
Deianira {Met. 9. loi seq.) is alluded to in Alls 4. 3. 283, 
and the poisoned Nessus-shirt in Ant. 4. 12. 43, and prob- 
ably also in As 2. 3. 14, 15. As to Hercules' death, Shake- 
speare is fairly explicit. He twice refers to the page Lichas, 
who was thrown far into the air by the enraged hero, Merch. 
2. I. 32 ; Ant. 4. 12. 45, a detail which may have been learned 
from Met. 9. 217-18: 

terque quaterque rotatum 
Mittit in Euboicas tormento fortius undas; 



74 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

but the phrase in Ant., 'Let me lodge Lichas on the horns 
of the moon,' seems nearer to the Senecan account of Here. 
(Etans, 815-822 : 

In astra missus fertur, et nubes vago 
Spargit cruore. 

That Shakespeare may have known this drama of Seneca 
in Studley's translation is suggested by a passage in Mids. 
I. 2. 31-43. Bottom says: 'I could play Ercles rarely,' and 
as proof of his ability quotes : 

The raging rocks 
And shivering shocks 
Shall break the locks 
Of prison gates, etc. 

In the Senecan drama, 'Hercles,' as Studley calls him, 
recounts his own exploits in bad verse with excessive use of 
alliteration. 

For Hercules' battle with the Centaurs see s. v. Centaurs. 

Hermes. — H5. 3. 7. 19. See Mercury. 

Hero and Leander. — Mids. 5. i. 199; Gent. i. i. 22; 3. i. 119; 
Rom. 2. 4. 44; Ado 5. 2. 30; As 4. i. 100. 

Marlowe's Hero and Leander was entered on the Stat. 
Reg. in 1593, published in 1598 (two sestiads), and repub- 
lished with continuation by Chapman in 1600. This makes 
it unlikely that the first four of the above citations were 
drawn from the popular poem. In As (1600) Shake- 
speare quotes a line from the poem, so that the references in 
As and Ado (1599-1600) may well be attributed to Marlowe. 
In Gent, i. 

Pro. Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee. 

Val. That's on some shallow story of deep love : 
How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont, 

the allusion must be to Alusseus. There were numerous 
Latin translations, and in 1544 a French translation by 
Clement Marot. None of the allusions is explicit enough 



Hermes — Hyperion 75 

to prove that Shakespeare had ever read the book. He 
knows Hero and Leander as types of devoted lovers, 

Hiems. — Mids. 2. i. 109. 

The seasons alter : hoary-headed frosts 
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, 
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown 
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds 
Is, as in mockery, set. 

(The early editions read 'chin and icy crown' ; the reading 
'thin' is Tyrwhitt's suggestion.) As has already been 
noticed by Malone, this description of Winter is to be traced 
to Golding's translation of Met. 2. 30 : 

Et glacialis Hiems canos hirsuta capillos. 

Golding renders, p. 17a and b: 

And lastly quaking for the colde, stood Winter all forlorne, 
With rugged heade as white as Dove, and garments all to torne, 
Forladen with the Icycles that dangled up and downe 
Uppon his gray and hoarie bearde and snowie frozen crowne. 

Though Shakespeare has used the Latin form, Hiems, his 
lines would seem to have been drawn from Golding's expan- 
sion of the single line of the original Latin. Cf. also LLL 
5. 2. 901. 

Hesperides. — See Hercules. 

Hydra. — See Hercules. 



Tim. 
325 



Hymen.— Ado 5. 3. 32; As 5. 4. 114-152; Hml. 3. 2. 169; 
4. 3. 384; Tp. 4. I. 23, 97; Per. 3. prol. 9; Tit. i. i. 
(Hymenseus). 

Hymen, the divinity of marriage, was a frequent person- 
age in the masque. In As 5. 4. he leads in the restored 
Rosalind. As indicated in Tp., he is represented as bearing 
a torch. Cf. Met. 4. 758; Her. 11. loi, etc. In Tim. 
'Hymen' equals 'marriage.' Cf. Met. i. 480. 

Hyperion. — See Sun-divinities. 



J 



76 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Icarus. — See Daedalus. 

Ilium (Ilion). — (Ilium) Hml. 2. 2. 496; Troil. i. i. 104; i. 2. 46, 
50, 194; (Ilion) LLL 5. 2. 658; Troil. 2. 2. 109; 4. 4. 118; 
4. 5. 112, 216; 5. 8. II. 

The name Ilium (Greek, Ilion) is properly a mere poeti- 
cal equivalent of Troy, as in ^n. 2. 624-25 : 

Turn vero omne mihi visum considere in ignes 
Ilium, et ex imo verti Neptunia Troia. 

In this significance the form Ilion seems to be used by 
Shakespeare ; compare 

Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand. 

Troil. 2. 2. 109. 
So, Ilion, fall thou next ! now, Troy, sink down ! 

Troil. S. 8. II. 

and in LLL Hector is called 'heir of Ilion.' But in all the 
cases in which the form Ilium is used, the context shows 
that Shakespeare means by it not the city, but Priam's 
castle, the citadel of the town. Thus in Troil. i. i. 104 we 
read: 

Between our Ilium and where she resides, 

i. e. Cressida's house in Troy; and in i. 2. 46: 

When were you at Ilium? — This morning, uncle. 

So too in Hml. 'senseless Ilium' is the palace (cf. Priam). 
It is in this latter sense that Caxton uses the word Ylion : 
Tn the moste apparaunt place of the cyte upon a roche the 
king pryant dide do make hys ryche palays that was named 
ylion' (p. 508, and so always). So too Chaucer, Legend of 
Good Women 936-37 : 

In al the noble tour of Ilioun, 

That of the citee was the cheef dungeoun. 

Skeat in a note on Hous of Fame 158 shows that this was 
the general mediaeval usage. That Shakespeare so uses the 
form Ilium is absolutely plain. This may be his meaning 
in the use of the other spelling, for the sense is open to 



Icarus — Iris 7 7 

reasonable doubt in every instance. It would be difficult to 
find any authority for a distinction. 

Iris.— Alls I. 3. 158; Troil. i. 3. 380; Tp. 4- i; H6B 3. 2. 407. 

Iris, originally the rainbow, becomes, from her position 
between heaven and earth, like Hermes, a messenger of the 
gods, more especially of Hera. But in the strongly anthro- 
pomorphic atmosphere of the Homeric poems her connec- 
tion with the rainbow is preserved only in epithets such as 
Xpvo-oTTTepos (//. 8. 398; II. 185). In Vergil (and in Ovid), 
on the other hand, the nature-aspect of Iris reasserts itself. 
Thus in ^n. 5. 609 she descends along the many-colored 
bow ; and in ^n. 4. 700-702 : 

Ergo Iris croceis per caelum roscida pinnis 
Mille trahens varios adverse sole colores 
Devolat. 

In the masque in Tp. the conception of Iris is strongly 
Vergilian. She is necessarily a personality distinct from the 
rainbow, for she appears on the stage ; but she calls herself 
the 'watery arch and messenger' of Juno, and her connec- 
tion with the rainbow is further marked in the following 
lines addressed to her by Ceres : 

Hail, many-colored messenger, that ne'er 
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter; 
Who with thy saffron wings upon my flowers 
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers, 
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown 
My bosky acres. 

The first of these lines suggests the 'nuntia lunonis varios 
induta colores' of Met. i. 270, while the third and fourth 
may be referred with some confidence to ^n. 4. 700-702 
(quoted above). That the Vergilian passage may have been 
read in Phaer's translation is suggested by the verbal cor- 
respondences with Shakespeare in the following line : 

Dame Rainbow down therfore with safron wings of dropping shours. 

In Alls and Troil. Iris loses all personality, and becomes 
merely a name for the rainbow. (The meaning of the pas- 



78 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

sage in Alls is made clear by a comparison with Lucr. 1587.) 
Diametrically opposed to this conception of Iris is that in 
H6B, where she is thought of merely as a messenger. 

lo. — Shr. Ind. 2. 56. See Jupiter. 

Ixion (?). — Lr. 4. 7. 47. 

Lear says to Cordelia: 

You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave : 
Thou art a soul in bliss ; but I am bound 
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears 
Do scald like molten lead. 

This suggests the fate of Ixion : Georg. 3. 38 ; Met. 4. 460. 
If one could assume that Shakespeare knew the story of 
Ixion as contained in Apollodorus i. 8. 2, the allusion would 
be especially appropriate, since the theme of the myth, like 
that of Lr., is ingratitude. 

Janus. — Merch. i. i. 50; 0th. i. 2. 2>2i- 

In Merch., Salario says : 

Now, by two-headed Janus, 
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time : 
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 
And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper. 
And other of such vinegar aspect 
That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile. 
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. 

On this Eccles comments : 'Because Janus had two counte- 
nances, a laughing and a sad.' The phrase Tane biceps' 
occurs in Fasti 1. 65. lago's oath by Janus in 0th. is to be 
explained either by the fact that lago is a soldier and Janus 
is a god of war, or that, as Warburton suggested, 'there is 
great propriety in making the double lago swear by Janus, 
who had two faces.' 

Jason. — Merch. i. i. 172; 3. 2. 244. See Argonauts. 

Jove. — See Jupiter. 



lo — Juno 79 

Juno. 

Juno is unfortunate among the dwellers on Olympus in 
that she has totally lost her original significance as a nature- 
myth, and has not, like Minerva, taken on any deep ethical 
significance. In Vergil and Ovid her actions are almost 
without exception due to an anger which has its roots in 
jealousy — not an exalted conception of divinity. Shake- 
speare mentions Juno 20 times by name and once by impli- 
cation, but never with any great significance. In Cor. 4. 2. 
53 ; 5- 3- 46 and in Cymb. 3. 4. 168 her anger and jealousy 
are the points of allusion, and in Alls 3. 4. 13 her anger 
against Hercules in particular is referred to. In LLL 4. 3. 
118 and Wint. 4. 4. 121 she is a type of beauty ; while in Tp. 
4. I. 102 and Per. 5. i. 112 the majesty of her port is men- 
tioned. Thus in Tp., as she is about to enter in the masque, 
Ceres says : 

Great Juno comes ; I know her by her gait. 

This is to be traced, directly or indirectly, to the 'divom 
incedo regina' of ^n. i. 46, though strongly suggesting 
the 'vera incessu patuit dea' of ^n. i. 405, where the poet 
is speaking of Venus. From the masque in Tp. we also learn 
that she is sister to Ceres (both were daughters of Saturn 
and Rhea), and that she was drawn through the air by pea- 
cocks. For this latter conception authority is found in Met. 
2. 532. 

The mention of 'J^i^'^o's swans' in As i. 3. yj is a famous 
Shakespearian crux. Venus' swans are mentioned in Met. 
10. 708, 717, 718, and Shakespeare's slip is the more remark- 
able because, as Wright has noticed, these lines are included 
in the story of Venus and Adonis. 

In As I. 3. yy; Tp. 4. i. ; Per. 2. 3. 30, Juno is exercising 
her common classical function as patroness of marriage. 

With one exception, allusions to Juno do not appear ear- 
lier than As. 



8o Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Jupiter. 

As principal and supreme divinity, Shakespeare, like 
many authors of the Renaissance, identifies Jove with 
the Christian God ; so that in a play with pagan back- 
ground, like Cymb. or Wint., the name 'Jove' is used 
as the equivalent of 'God.' Even in plays the scenes of 
which are laid in Christian times the same substitution is 
not uncommon, due in part, perhaps, to the statute against 
profanation. This substitution is particularly frequent 
in Tw. 

Of the attributes of Jove, the thunder is most often men- 
tioned by Shakespeare — an attribute, it will be noticed, which 
Jove has in common with the Hebrew Jehovah. He is called 
'Thunder-bearer' in Lr. 2. 4. 231, and 'Thunder-darter' in 
Troil. 2. 3. 12, while the phrase 'Jupiter tonans' of Met. i. 
170, etc., is reproduced in the 'By Jove that thunders' of Ant. 
3. 13. 85. At times the conception becomes Hebraic rather 
than classical. Thus in H5. 2. 4. 100, 

Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming, 
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove, 

one is reminded of the voice out of the whirlwind in Job 
38. I, or the voice which came to Elijah in i Kings 19. 11, 12. 
Again, in Cor. 4. 5. 109, 

If Jupiter 
Should from yond cloud speak divine things. 
And say 'Tis true,' 

there seems to be a reminiscence of Matthew 17. 5 : 'Behold 
a voice out of the cloud, saying. This is my beloved Son . . . ; 
hear ye him,' In Oth. 2. i. yy, 

Great Jove, Othello guard, 
And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath, 

we have again a Hebraic rather than a classical conception. 
Cf. Job 37. 10; Psalm 18. 15. In one instance. Ant. i. 2. 
157, Jove is spoken of as the sender of rain (compare the 
phrase, 'Jupiter pluvius'). 



Jupiter 8 1 

Other attributes mentioned are the eagle : Cymb. 4, 2. 348 ; 
5. 4. 92 etc., and the oak: As 3. 2. 250; Tp. 5. i. 45 ; H6C 
5. 2. 14. The eagle is called 'lovis armiger' in ^n. 5. 255 ; 
9. 564, and it is the eagle which carries away Ganymede. 
The conception of Jove as descending on the eagle's back 
(Cymb. 5. 4. 92) is not classical, suggesting rather a vision 
of Ezekiel. The oak as Jove's peculiar tree may be referred 
to the 'magna lovis quercus' of Georg. 3. 332, or better to 
Met. I. 106, which Golding translates (p. 5b) : 

The acornes dropt on ground from loves brode tree in feelde. 

Compare with this As 3. 2. 249, which suggests a possible 
verbal indebtedness: T found him under a tree, like a 
dropped acorn. It may well be called Jove's tree, when it 
drops such fruit.' 

In one instance (Troil. 4. 5. 191) Jupiter is spoken of as 
'dealing life,' a conception which is reflected in the phrase : 
'hominum sator atque deorum' of u^n. i. 254. 

The erotic myths connected with Jove receive compara- 
tively little attention. This side of Jove's character is alluded 
to without specific reference in LLL 4. 3. 117, 144; Oth. 2. 
3. 17 (?) ; Cymb. 5. 4. 33 ; H6B 4. i. 47 ; Per. i. i. 7. The 
story of lo, related in Met. i. 588-600, is alluded to once, in 
Shr, Ind. 2. 56, as the subject of a picture. There is also one 
(/ allusion to Ganymede, As i. 3. 127; see Alet. 10. 155 seq. 
Leda, too, receives one mention, Wiv. 5. 5. 7; see Her. 
16. 55. A possible allusion to Danae and the shower of gold 
is found in Rom. i. i. 120; see Aui. 2. 19. 27-8. The 
story of Europa was apparently more familiar: H4B 2. 2. 
192 ; Wiv. 5. 5- 3 ; Ado 5. 4. 45 ; Troil. 5. i. 59 ; Wint. 4. 4. 
27; Shr, I. I. 174; it is told at length in Met. 2. 846-876. 
In Ado there is reference to the 'amiable low' of the meta- 
morphosed Jupiter, which may be referred to 1. 851 ; Golding 
translates : 'Goes lowing gently up and downe.' The allu- 
sion in Shr. is more detailed : 

O yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face, 
Such as the daughter of Agenor had, 
That made great Jove to humble him to her hand, 
When with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand. 
6 



82 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

That Enropa is daughter of Agenor is told in 1. 858. In 
1. 2. of Bk. 3 we are told that the land to which Europa was 
carried was 'Dictsea rura' ; for this Golding substitutes 'He 
of Crete.' For the idea of his kneeling on the strand I find 
no definite antecedent. The allusion to the Europa story in 
Wint. is taken over bodily from Dorastiis and Fawnia (Haz- 
litt's Shak. Library Pt. I, Vol. 4, p. 62), from which the plot 
of Wint. is borrowed. Under this heading may also be con- 
sidered Juliet's lines in Rom. 2. 2. 92-93, 'At lovers' perjuries, 
they say, Jove laughs,' obviously a translation of 'Juppiter 
ex alto periuria ridet amantum,' Art. i. 633; though Dyce 
points out that it might have come to Shakespeare from 
Bojardo's Orlando Innam. i. 22. 42. 

Another Ovidian story, that of Jove's entertainment by the 
humble old couple, Philemon and Baucis, Met. 8. 630, is 
twice referred to: Ado 2. i. 100; As 3. 3. 11. In each of 
these passages Philemon's house is said to be 'thatched.' 
Golding tells us 'The roofe therof was thatched all with 
straw and fennish reede' (p. 113b). 

Special notice must be given to the masque in Cymb. 5. 4, 
where 'Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning sitting 
upon an eagle; he throws a thunderbolt.' The whole 
episode is distinctly modern — in certain details Hebraic 
rather than classical. 'As men report Thou orphans' father 
art' 11. 39-40 echoes the phrase 'A father of the fatherless,' 
Psalm 68. 5. In 1. 81 Sicilius prays: 'The crystal window 
ope ; look out,' with which cf . 'The windows of heaven were 
opened,' Genesis 7. 11. 'Whom best I love I cross,' 1. loi, 
is little more than a paraphrase of Hebrews 12. 6. The 
'marble mansion' of 1. 87 means of course the clouds ; and 
is a modern rather than a classical conception. 

I am at a loss to explain what is meant by 'Jove's own 
book,' Cor. 3. i. 293, unless here, too, we are to look for a 
Biblical reminiscence. 

Laertes. — Tit. i. i. 380. 

Ulysses is called 'wise Laertes' son.' 



Laertes — Mars 83 

Leander. — See Hero. 

Leda. — Wiv. 5. 5. 7. See Jupiter. Shr. i. 2. 244. See Helen. 

Lethe. — See Hades. 

Lichas. — Merch. 2. i. 32; Ant. 4. 12. 45. See Hercules. 

Love. — See Cupid and Venus. 

Lucina. — Cymb. 5. 4. 43; Per. i. i, 8; 3. i. 10. 

Lucina is properly an epithet of Juno (or of Diana) as 
patroness of childbirth, i. e. the one who brings to light. 
She is mentioned often in Ovid, e. g. Met. 9. 294; 10. 510. 
None of the Shakespearian allusions connect her with either 
Juno or Diana. 

Mars. 

Shakespeare's allusions to Mars, though frequent, are for 
the most part highly conventional. He is either the patron 
divinity of war, or a type of martial valor and manly strength, 
but never a mere personification of, or synonym for, war. 
This conventional use of his name is especially common in 
the warlike plays, such as the histories, Troil., Ant., and Cor. 

There are a few instances of more detailed allusion. Thus 
in Hml. 2. 2. 512 and Troil. 4. 5. 255 we hear of his armor 
forged by the hammers of the Cyclopes (in Mn. 8. 407-453 
they forge him a car and flying wheels), and in five passages 
allusion is made to his intrigue with Venus : Ven. 98 ; Troil. 
5. 2. 165; Ant. I. 5. 18; Tp. 4.' I. 98; Tit. 2. i. 89. The 
story, first told in Odys. 8. 266 seq., is retold by Ovid in 
Art. 2. 561 seq., and more briefly in Met. 4. 171 seq. 

In Troil. 3. 3. 190 we have, as Steevens has pointed out, 
an obvious allusion to Iliad 5. 864-898, where Mars, wounded 
by Diomed, is rebuked for his interference in the battle. 
A further allusion to the incident is found in Cymb. 5.4. 32 ; 
Sicilius says to Jupiter : 

With Mars fall out, with Juno chide 
That thy adulteries 
Rates and revenges. 



84 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

With this compare //. 5. 889-893 where Jupiter says to Mars 
(Chapman's translation, p. 81) : 

Thou many minds, inconstant, changeling thou, 
Sit not complaining thus by me, whom most of all the Gods 
Inhabiting the starry hill I hate ; no periods 
Being set to thy contentions, brawls, fights and pitching fields; 
Just of thy mother Juno's moods, stiff-necked, and never yields, 
Though I correct her still and chide. 

The coupling of Mars and Juno, and the word chide, seem 
significant. 

Possibly a further indebtedness to //. 5 is to be found in 
the phrase 'speak as loud as Mars,' Ant. 2. 2. 6. In //. 5. 
859-861, when wounded, 'Brazen Ares bellowed loud as nine 
thousand warriors or ten thousand cry in battle as they join 
in strife and fray.' It must be remembered, however, that 
Chapman's translation of //. 5 was not published till 1610, 
which makes it hard to explain the allusion in Troil, May 
we assume that Shakespeare might have read this book of 
Chapman in manuscript? 

Mars as a planetary influence is several times referred to. 

Medea. — ^Merch. 5. i. 13 ; H6B 5. 2. 59. See Argonauts. 

Menelaus. — H6C 2. 2. 147 ; Troil. passim. 

In H6C Menelaus is merely mentioned as Helen's husband. 
The Menelaus of Troil. is based on Caxton. 

Mercury. 

Originally a divinity of cloud and storm. Mercury becomes, 
from his position between heaven and earth, like the rainbow 
Iris, a messenger of Jove, an instrument by which the gods 
may carry out their will on earth. It is in this capacity as 
winged messenger that Shakespeare thinks of him in the 
majority of instances. Often he is no more than a type of 
swiftness, or merely a synonym for 'messenger' (cf. Wiv. 
2. 2. 82). Two allusions of this sort deserve special atten- 
tion. In K. J. 4. 2. 174 we read : 

Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels, 

And fly like thought from them to me again. 



Medea — Mercury 85 

With this cf. Met. i. 671-72 : 

Parva mora est alas pedibus virgamque potenti 
Somniferam sumpsisse manu tegumenque capillis. 

In Golding's version of these Hnes (p. 14b), 'He made no 
long abod, but tyde his f ethers too his feete,' one is tempted 
to discover a verbal correspondence. In Hml. 3. 4. 58 
Hamlet says that his father had 

A station like the herald Mercury 
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill, 

which strongly suggests the following lines from ^n. 4. 

246-253 : 

lamque volans apicem et latera ardua cernit 
Atlantis duri, caelum qui vertice fulcit, 

Hie primum paribus nitens Cyllenius alis 
Constitit. 

Though the wings of Mercury are so often spoken of, 
there is but one allusion to his magic wand, in Troil. 2. 3. 13, 
where mention is made of the 'serpentine craft of his cadu- 
ceus.' That the wand was wreathed with serpents was a 
later Latin tradition ; Steevens adduces Martial, Epig. 7. 74; 
Marlowe speaks of his 'snaky rod' in Hero and Leander i. 

This notion of 'serpentine craft' brings us to the Roman 
conception of Mercury as the crafty patron of merchants, a 
conception which naturally grew out of Mercury the messen- 
ger. In Tw. I. 5. 105 Feste says: 

Now Mercury endue thee with leasing. 

Cf. Fasti 5, where the Roman merchant prays to Mercury to 
make him clever in lies. So, too, in Wint. 4. 3. 25 the rogue 
Autolycus w^as 'littered under Mercury.' To Mercury's gifts 
in oratory there is an apparent allusion in LLL 5. 2. 940. 
The allusion to the 'pipe of Hermes' in H5. 3. 7. 19 is to be 
referred to Met. i. 677 seq., where Mercury charms asleep 
the monster, Argus, by the music of his pipe. 

It is not so easy to explain satisfactorily the following line 
from Troil. 2. 2. 45 : 

And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove. 



86 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

May it refer to an episode in Marlowe's Hero and Leander 
I, where Mercury steals nectar from heaven to win the grati- 
tude of a shepherd girl, and is severely rebuked therefor by 
Jove ? For Marlowe's fable, as for Shakespeare's line, I have 
found no satisfactory classical antecedent. 

Mermaid. — See Sirens. 

Merops. — Gent. 3. i. 153. See Phaeton. 

Midas. — Merch. 3. 2. 102. 

Therefore, thou gaudy gold, 
Hard food for Midas. 

Midas had the power of turning all that he touched to gold, 
see Met. 11. 100 seq. (Golding, p. 141a). L. 124 relates 
how even his food was transmuted in his mouth, and how 
in consequence poor Midas was like to have starved. 

Minerva. — Cymb. 5. 5. 164; Shr. i. i. 84; H4A 4. i. 114 (?). 

In Cymb. the image of 'straight-pight Minerva' is a type 
of beauty. I cannot discover that the epithet corresponds to 
any of the recognized epithets of Minerva in Greek or Latin 
literature. In Shr. she is mentioned as a type of wisdom. 
The 'iire-eyed maid of smoky war' in H4A is probably to be 
interpreted as Minerva. Chapman calls her 'war's tri- 
umphant maid' in //. 7, and the epithet 'fire-eyed' corre- 
sponds to Homer's epithet 'glaukopis.' The name Pallas 
does not occur in Shakespeare except in Tit. (4. i. 66), 
though it is common in Elizabethan authors. It is not easy 
to explain the paucity of Shakespeare's allusions to Minerva. 

Minos, Minotaur. — See Daedalus. 

Muse. — Mids. 5. i. 52; H5. Prol. i; 0th. 2. i. 128; and in Sonn. 
seventeen times. 

Usually the word Muse is merely equivalent to 'poetic 
talent.' Twice there is mention of nine muses: Mids. 5. i. 
52 ; Sonn. 38. 9 ; and in Sonn. 85. 4, 'all the Muses.' In 
Sonn. 78. I Shakespeare invokes his friend to be his Muse. 
The Muses are never mentioned in connection with Apollo. 



Mermaid — Narcissus 87 

Music of the Spheres. — Merch. 5. i. 60; Tw. 3. i. 121; As 2. 7. 6; 
Ant. 5. 2. 84; Per. 5. i. 231. 

Only the first of these passages requires special attention. 
Lorenzo says : 

Look how the floor of heaven 
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold : 
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ; 
Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. 

Elze thinks Shakespeare took this from Montaigne's essay 
On Custom. As Florio's translation did not appear till 
1603, he would have had to read it in the French. I fail to 
find in the passage any sufficient reason for thinking Shake- 
speare had seen it. In a note on Tw. 3. i. 121, Furness 
refers us to Plato, Republic 10. 14. This is, of course, the 
ultimate source ; but Furness does not suggest how it 
reached Shakespeare. Shakespeare may have met the idea 
in Cicero's Somnium Scipionis. The passage closes with 
these words : 'Now this sound, which is effected by the rapid 
rotation of the whole system of nature, is so powerful, that 
human hearing cannot comprehend it ; just as you cannot 
look directly upon the sun, because your sight and sense are 
overcome by liis beams' (trans. Edmonds). However, the 
idea is a common one for which it is rash to assign a definite 
source. 

Myrmidons. — Tw. 2. 3. 29. See Achilles. 

Naiads. — Tp. 4. i. 128. 

In the masque of Act 4 Iris summons up the Naiads, 
describing them as 'nymphs of the windring brooks.' In 
Tp. I. 2. 316 Ariel enters like a water-nymph. 

Narcissus. — Ven. 161 ; Lucr. 265 ; Ant. 2. 5. 96. 

In Ant. Narcissus is referred to merely as a type of irre- 



88 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

sistible beauty. The first two citations allude to his fatal 
love for his own image. In Ven. : 

Narcissus so himself himself forsook 
And died to kiss his shadow in the brook. 

In Lucr. : 

That had Narcissus seen her as she stood, 
Self-love had never drown'd him in the flood. 

Comparing- these allusions with the account in Met. 3. 407 
seq., we notice that Shakespeare does not mention the meta- 
morphosis into a flower, but thinks of Narcissus as drowned 
in the water on which he gazed. That this more prosaic 
version of the story was not unknown to the ancients is 
shown by Eustathius, Com in. ad Hoiiicri Iliadem, p. 266, line 
7. That it was not unfamiliar to the Elizabethans may be 
shown from Marlowe's Hero and Leander i. 74. I am 
inclined to believe, however, that Shakespeare's immediate 
source may have been a poem of 264 lines in Latin hexa- 
meters by one John Clapham, entitled Narcissus, sive Amoris 
Juvenilis et Prcccipue Philantice Brevis atque Moralis De- 
scriptio, published by Thomas Scarlet, London, 1591, a copy 
of which is preserved in the British Museum. The closing 
lines of this poem are as follows : 

Hasc ubi dicta dedit tendens ad sidera palmas, 
Terque gemens dicit pereo, formose valeto, 
Dure nimis, repetens iterum, formose valeto. 
Deficiunt vires, et vox et spiritus ipse 
Deficit, et pronus de ripa decidit, et sic 
Ipse suae periit deceptus imaginis umbra. 

We ha*'e here the death by drowning, and in the title of 
the composition the 'self-love' of Shakespeare's lines. 

Not to push the similarity between the 'periit deceptus 
imaginis umbra' and the last line quoted from Ven., one may 
notice that the only detailed allusions to Narcissus in Shake- 
speare occur in poems published in 1594 and 1593 respec- 
tively, or within four years of the date of Clapham's Narcis- 



Nature 89 

sus, and that Clapham's poem is, like the two poems of 
Shakespeare, dedicated to Henry, Earl of Southampton. 

Nature. 

Shakespeare's Nature is merely a personification of a 
philosophical abstraction, properly not mythological at all. 
I shall merely enumerate the more significant aspects which 
the personification takes. Any attempt to trace the ultimate 
sources of the conception would take us far afield in ancient 
and mediaeval philosophy. 

She is the power which gives to the created universe its 
form. Thus she is spoken of as 'molding' (Cymb. 5. 4. 48) 
or 'framing' (Ven. 744; Merch. i. i. 51), and once as 
'forging Nature' (Ven. 729). It is she who frames the 
human body, deterrfiining its physical appearance (Ado 3. i. 
63; Mids. 5. I. 416; Ven. 744) ; thus she has to do with 
childbirth (Wint. 2. 2. 60; Lr. i. 4. 297). Not only the 
physical but moral stature of man is of her forging (Ado 

3. I. 49; Meas. I. I. 37; Cymb. 4. 2. 170). Still more 
interesting is the conception of her in H4B i. i. 153 as the 
spirit of order which keeps the world from relapsing into 
chaos : 

Let heaven kiss earth ! Now let not Nature's hand 
Keep the wild flood confined! let order die. 

Somewhat similar are the curses in Lr. 3. 2. 8 and Wint. 

4. 4. 488; cf. also Mcb. 4. I. 59. 

In this function of fashioner and preserver she encounters 
several powers more or less hostile. As 'sovereign mistress 
over wrack' she is opposed in Sonn. 126. 5 to the destroyer, 
Time. In Ven. 733 the Destinies cross her 'curious work- 
manship.' Fortune is opposed to her in Wiv. 3. 3. 69, and 
that the opposition is frequent is implied by K. J. 3. i. 52. 
She is contrasted with art in Wint. 4. 4. 83 ff. ; 5. 2. 108. 

Deserving of special attention are the Friar's words in 
Rom. 2. 3. 9: 

The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb ; 
What is her burying grave, that is her womb, 



90 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

which Steevens would refer to Lucretius 5. 260: 

Omniparens eadem rerum commune sepulchrum. 

Nectar. — Ven. 572; Gent. 2. 4. 171; Troil. 3. 2. 23. 

Nectar is mentioned only three times, and never with 
definite mythological allusion. Ambrosia is never men- 
tioned. 

Nemean Lion. — See Hercules. 

Nemesis. — H6A 4. 7. 78. 

Talbot is called the 'terror and black Nemesis' of France. 
The word is used loosely as about equivalent to 'agent of 
destruction.' The divinity is not mentioned by either Ovid 
or Vergil; she is, however, the subject of one of Whitney's 
Emblems, p. 19. 

Neptune. 

Shakespeare's treatment of Neptune is rather colorless. 
His chariot is nowhere mentioned ; his trident is referred 
to but twice. Cor. 3. i. 256; Tp. i. 2. 204. In other words, 
he is not a divinity but a personification, more or less vivid, 
of the sea. In Mids. 3. 2. 392; Tp. 5. i. 35; Wint. 5. i. 
154; Per, 3. 3. 36, the personal element is nearly, if not 
quite, absent, as shown by the definite article in 'the ebbing 
Neptune,' 'the dreadful Neptune.' (Troil. i. 3. 45 should 
probably be included here : a wrecked ship is spoken of as 
a toast for Neptune, where the ship is apparently compared 
to a piece of toast soaked in a cup, of wine (cf. Wiv. 3. 5. 3) 
or soup). In R2. 2. i. 63 ; Ant. 4. 14. 58; Cymb. 3. i. 19 
there is a half-personification, while in K. J. 5. 2. 34 ; Troil. 
5. 2. 174 ; Ant. 2. 7. 139 ; Tim. 5. 4. 78, Neptune is accredited 
with eyes, ears, and arms. Perhaps the most vivid personi- 
fication is in H4B 3. I. 51 : 

and, other times, to see 
The beachy girdle of the ocean 
Too wide for Neptune's hips. 



Nectar — Nestor 91 

In a few instances, Mids. 2. i. 127; Hml. i. i. 119; 3. 2. 
166 ; Mcb. 2. 2. 60 ; Per. 3, prol. 45, Neptune is spoken of 
as oivning the sea, in such phrases as : 'Neptune's yellow 
sands' (Mids,), 'Neptune's ocean' (Mcb.), 'Neptune's empire,' 
(Hml. i). In Per, 3. i, i. he is 'god of this great vast,' 
and his worship is alluded to in 5, prol, 17 and 5, i, 17, 

There is but one allusion to the mythology of Neptune in 
the narrower sense, i, e. his metamorphosis into a ram in 
order to seduce Theophane {Met. 6. 117), but this allusion, 
Wint. 4. 4. 28, is borrowed bodily from Dorastus and 
Fawnia, the main source of Wint. See Hazlitt's Shak. Libr. 
Pt. I, Vol. 4, p. 62. 

Nereides. — Ant. 2. 2. 211. 

The Nereides are referred to but once, in a description of 
Cleopatra's barge, where the word is taken over from the 
description in North's Plutarch, Life of Antonius (Temple 
ed. p. 34), 'Her ladies and gentlewomen also, the fairest 
of them were apparelled like the nymphs Nereids (which 
are the mermaids of the waters) and like the Graces, some 
steering the helm, others tending the tackle and ropes of the 
barge, etc' 

Nessus, — Alls 4. 3. 281; Ant. 4. 12. 43; As 2. 3. 14-15 (?). See 
Hercules. 

Nestor, — LLL 4. 3. 169; Lucr. 1401 ff. ; Merch. i. i. 56; H6A 2. 5. 
6 ; H6C 3. 2. 188. 

The allusions to Nestor outside of Troil., where he appears 
as one of the dramatis personcc, are all earlier than 1596. 
He is in every instance a type of age, dignity, or wise counsel 
and oratory. In Troil., also, the characterization of Nestor 
does not go much be3^ond these simple traits. He is 'vener- 
able Nestor, hatched in silver,' i. 3. 65 ; he was a man 'when 
Hector's grandsire sucked,' i. 3. 291. The character is 
throughout consistent with Homer's Nestor, and there is 
every reason to believe that Shakespeare had Chapman before 
him when he wrote Troil. Still, the eloquence and age of 



/ 



92 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Nestor are mentioned in Met. 13. 63-66, and in its broad 
features the character must have been familiar to Shake- 
peare from conversation and general reading. 

Night. 

In four passages, covering the whole range of his activity, 
Shakespeare speaks of Night as drawn through the sky by 
a yoke of dragons: Mids. 3. 2. 379; Troil. 5. 8. 17 (the 
authenticity of the scene has been doubted) ; Cymb. 2. 2. 48 ; 
H6B 4. I, 4. For such a conception there is no classical 
authority. In Ovid, Night is drawn by horses : 'Lente cur- 
rite noctis equi,' Am. i. 13. 40; 'Sive pruinosi noctis aguntur 
equi,' Pont. i. 2. 56. Where did Shakespeare get the idea? 
I have shown in the article on Hecate that Shakespeare and 
his contemporaries think of Hecate as driving a dragon-yoke, 
and in the same article have given my reasons for believing 
that Shakespeare identifies Hecate with Night. The dragon- 
yoke of night, then, is the dragon-yoke of Hecate. 

In H5. 4. I. 288 Shakespeare speaks of 'Horrid night, the 
child of hell.' Vergil calls Hades the 'world of shades, of 
sleep, and slumberous Night,' .^n. 6. 390; and in Fasti 6. 
140 occurs the phrase 'horrenda nocte.' In Hesiod, Theog. 
123, Night is a daughter of Chaos and Erebus. 

Niobe. — Hml. i. 2. 149; Troil. 5. 10. 19. 

Merely mentioned as a type of excessive weeping. Ovid 
tells the story in Met. 6. 146-312. The authenticity of the 
closing scenes of Troil. has been doubted. 

Olympus.— Hml. 5. i. 277; Cses. 3. i. 74; 4. 3. 92; 0th. 2. i. 190; 
Cor. 5. 3. 30; Tit. 2. I. I. 

Save in Tit., Olympus is not thought of as the dwelling- 
place of the gods, but simply as a type of a high and large 
mountain. In Hml. 5. i. 277 Pelion is so mentioned in con- 
nection with Olympus, and in Hml. 5. i. 306 Ossa is similarly 
referred to. The three mountains are mentioned together 
in Met. i. 154-155, in the account of the war of the giants. 
In 11. 155-6 Ovid says that many of the giants were buried 



Night — Orpheus 93 

under Pelion when Jove struck it from the top of Ossa. To 
this we may refer Mrs. Page's remark in Wiv. 2. i. 81, 1 
had rather be a giantess and lie under Mount Pelion.' 

Orpheus.— Mids. 5. i. 49; Gent. 3. 2. 78; Lucr. 553; Merch. 5. i. 
80; Tit. 2. 4. 51; H8. 3. I. 3- 

The myth of Orpheus represents to Shakespeare, as to the 
ancients, the power of music and poetry as a civilizing and 
pacifying force. In his earliest and in his latest plays he 
recognizes the soothing power of music. Thus in Mids. 
2. I. 150-152: 

(I) heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back 
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath 
That the rude sea grew civil at her song; 

and in Tp. i. 2. 391-92 Ferdinand says : 

This music crept by me upon the waters, 
Allaying both their fury and my passion ; 

and 'soft music' play its part in restoring harmony to the 
'untuned and jarring senses' of the 'child-changed' Lear. 

In Merch. 5. i, after describing the soothing effect of 
music on a herd of young colts, Lorenzo says : 

Therefore the poet 
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods; 
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage. 
But music for the time doth change his nature. 

The poet referred to is probably Ovid, who tells the story 
of Orpheus in Met. 10 and 11. At the beginning of Book 
II we read: 

Carmine dum tali silvas animosque ferarum 
Threicius vates et saxa sequentia ducit. 

(It is possibly worth noting that Golding translates ducit 
in this line by draivs.) Neither Ovid nor Vergil says that 
Orpheus drew floods; but in Horace, Od. i. 12. 7-10: 



94 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Unde vocalem temere insecutae 

Orphea silvse. 
Arte materna rapidos morantem 
Fluminum lapsus celeresque ventos. 

Compare also JMedea's incantation in Met. 7. 197-206. 

In Gent, 3. 2. Protens advises Thnrio to win his lady's 
heart by writing poems to her : 

For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews, 
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones, 
Make tigers tame and huge leviathans 
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands. 

For the idea expressed in the first line I find no classical 
authority. Eratosthenes, Catasterismi 24, says that Mercury 
made Orpheus' lyre out of a tortoise shell and the sinews of 
the cattle of Apollo; but of course Shakespeare did not 
know the obscure mythographer. Warburton has an over- 
subtle note in which he declares that Shakespeare is alluding 
to the legislative power of Orpheus. It may mean only that 
the music of the lute depends on the words of the poet for 
its effectiveness ; the context would bear out ' this interpre- 
tation. The second line is explained by Met. 11. 7-12: 
until the Thracian women drowned his music with their 
cries, javelins and stones fell harmless at his feet. The tam- 
ing of tigers is mentioned by Vergil, Georg. 4. 510. It is at 
least a curious coincidence that Vergil puts the story into 
the mouth of Proteus, the sea-divinity, while the Shake- 
spearian lines are spoken by the Veronese gentleman, his 
namesake (cf. s. v. Proteus). For the last line I find no 
authority. Further from the Latin originals is the charming 
song of Queen Katherine in H8. 3. i. The reference to 
Orpheus' death in Mids. 5. i. 49 suggests the possibility of 
a contemporary play on the subject ; but of this I find no 
trace. 

Orpheus' descent into Hades is mentioned rather inappro- 
priately in Lucr. 553 : 

And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays. 



Ossa — Penthesilea 95 

This may have been suggested by Met. lo. 40-44 or Georg. 
4. 481-484, though not definitely stated in either passage. 
The 'tenuitque inhians tria Cerberus ora" of the second pas- 
sage probably suggested Tit. 2. 4. 51. In ^n. 6. 417-425, 
where Cerberus disputes the passage of ^neas, the Sibyl 
puts him asleep with a drugged cake. Shakespeare may 
have confused this with the story of Orpheus. 

It will be noticed that all the allusions to Orpheus in the 
genuine plays come between 1590 and 1596. On 26 Aug. 
1595 was entered on the Stat. Reg. a poem called 'Orpheus, 
his Journey to Hell,' falsely attributed to Richard Barnfield. 

*/ Ossa. — Hml. 5. i. 306. See Olympus. 

Pallas. — Tit. 4. i. 66. See Minerva. 

Pandar(us). — See Troilus. 

Paris.— Lucr. 1473; H6A 5. 5. 104; Shr. i. 2. 247; Troil. passim. 

In Lucr. the lust of Paris is mentioned as occasioning the 
fall of Troy. In Shr. he is a type of the successful suitor. 
In H6A his journey to Greece to get Helen is mentioned. 
For such indefinite allusion to a common story, no specific 
source is to be assigned. His character and action in Troil. 
is derived from Caxton. One passage alone deserves par- 
ticular attention. In 2. 2. no Cassandra says: 

Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all, 

alluding to the fact that Hecuba, when big with Paris, 
dreamed she was delivered of a firebrand. Her. 16. 45-46. 
This fact is not mentioned by Caxton. Cf. s. v. Althsea. 

Pegasus. — See Perseus. 

1/ Pelion.— Wiv. 2. i. 8r ; Hml. 5. i. 277. See Olympus. 

Penelope. — Cor. i. 3. 92. See Ulysses. 

Penthesilea. — Tw. 2. 3. 193. 

Sir Toby playfully calls ]\Iaria Penthesilea. Penthesilea 
was queen of the Amazons. Her name is mentioned by 



96 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Ovid in Art. 3. 2 ; Her. 21. 118. She also appears in Caxton, 
as Pantesilee. 

Perigenia. — Mids. 2. i. 78. See Theseus. 

Perseus. 

Shakespeare's acquaintance with Perseus is not great. He 
is mentioned by name three times (H5. 3. 7. 22 ; Troil. i. 3. 
42 ; 4. 5. 186) as a horseman, and the first passage shows 
that he is thought of as riding Pegasus (see H5. 3. 7. 15). 
The only connection between Perseus and Pegasus recog- 
nized by the ancients is that, as Ovid relates, Met. 4. 785, 
Pegasus sprang from the blood of Medusa when Perseus 
cut of? her head. Troil. i. 3. 42 would indicate that Shake- 
speare, like Spenser (Ruins of Time 649), thinks of Perseus 
as mounted on Pegasus in his struggle with the sea-monster 
at the rescue of Andromeda. In the Ovidian account, Met. 
4. 663 seq., he is represented as flying out over the sea on 
winged sandals. It is easy to see how the confusion 
occurred, since Perseus rescued Andromeda soon after his 
encounter with Medusa. (It may be worth while to notice 
that in Rubens' painting of Perseus and Andromeda in the 
Royal Museum at Berlin, a winged horse stands at the left 
of the picture.) 

In view of these passages it is safe to conclude that in 
H4A 4. I. 109 it is to Perseus that Vernon compares Prince 
Hal: 

As if an angel dropped down from the clouds, 

To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 

And witch the world with noble horsemanship. 

Compare Jonson, Underwoods 71. 

Shakespeare thinks of Pegasus as winged, and with fiery 
nostrils (H5. 3. 7. 15). The first of these attributes is men- 
tioned by Ovid, Met. 5. 256, and Horace, Od. 4. 11. 26. For 
the second there is no classical authority, though the steeds 
of the sun breathe fire from their nostrils. Met. 2. 84. Shake- 
speare never speaks of Pegasus as connected with poetry. 
Cymb. 3. 2. 50 is an allusion to Pegasus. 



Perigenia — Philomel and T evens 97 

The Gorgon is mentioned twice (Mob. 2. 3. yj ; Ant. 2. 5. 
116), but not in connection with Perseus, in each case 
merely as a terrible sight. As related in Met. 5. 189-210; 
4. 779-781, the Gorgon's head had the power of turning the 
spectator to stone. In Mcb. 2. 3, at the discovery of Dun- 
can's murder, Macduff says : 

Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight 
With a new Gorgon. 

Phaeton.— Gent. 3- i- IS3; Rom. 3- 2. 3 ; R2. 3. 3. 178; H6C i. 4. 
33; 2. 6. 12. 

Ovid tells in Met. i. 748 — 2. 238 how Phaeton, wrongly 
accused of being the son, not of Phcebus but of the mortal 
Merops, asked his father Phoebus to let him drive for a day 
the chariot of the sun, that he might thereby prove his divine 
parentage. Phoebus unwillingly consented ; but the 'unruly 
jades' ran away ; the heavens and earth were scorched ; 
and the presumptuous driver fell into the river Eridanus. 
Shakespeare may well have drawn his knowledge of the myth 
from Ovid, though, save that Golding (p. 22a) calls Phaeton 
a 'wagoner' (cf. Rom. 3. 2. 2), there are no striking verbal 
similarities. As a parallel to Rom., 

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, 
Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a waggoner 
As Phaeton would whip you to the west, 
And bring in cloudy night immediately, 

Malone quotes the following from Barnabe Riche's Farewell 
(1583) : 'The day to his seeming passed away so slowely 
that he had thought the stately steedes had bin tired that 
drawe the chariot of the Sunne, and wished that Phaeton had 
been there with a whip.' 

Philomel and Tereus. 

In Tit. there are five references to the story of Philomel 

and Tereus. Lavinia's fate is compared to that of Philomel ; 

like her she is ravished, and like her deprived of her tongue 

that the secret may not be told. Philomel weaves her story 

7 



gS Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

into a web, which is sent to her sister Progne ; Lavinia, who 
has lost hands as well as tongue, is yet able to turn over the 
pages of Ovid's Metamorphoses until she comes to the story 
of her prototype (Tit. 4. i. 42). The revenge wreaked on 
Tamora is confessedly suggested by that which Progne 
devises for Tereus (Tit. 5. 2. 195; cf. Met. 6. 646). If 
we were sure that Shakespeare wrote Tit., the explicit 
indebtedness to Met. 6. 412-676 would make us confident in 
asserting that Ovid is the book referred to in Cymb. 2. 2. 45 : 

She hath been reading late 
The tale of Tereus ; here the leaf's turn'd down 
Where Philomel gave up. 

Malone notices that the story is the second tale in A Petite 
Palace of Pettie his Pleasure (1576) and that it is also told 
in Gower's Conf. Am. 5. I discover no immediate indebted- 
ness to Gower. 

As Philomel was turned into a nightingale, so we have in 
Mids. 2, 2. 13, and often elsewhere, the name used as equiva- 
lent to 'nightingale.' More explicit is the reference in Lucr. 
1 128 ff., where in 1. 1134 Tereus is named. 

Phoebe. — See Diana. 

Phoebus. — See Sun-divinities. 

Phoenix. — As 4. 3. 17; Alls i. i. 182; Sonn. 19. 4; Ant. 3. 2. 12; 
Tim. 2. I. 32; Tp. 3. 3. 23; Cymb. i. 6. 17; H6A 4. 7. 93; H6C 

I. 4. 35; H8. 5. 5. 41; Lov. Comp. 93; Phoen. and Turtle, 
passim. 

The familiar story of the Phoenix is found in Met. 15. 
391-407; but for an idea so common in Elizabethan litera- 
ture one cannot assign a definite source. 

Pigmies. — Ado 2. i. 278; Lr. 4. 6. 171. 

Shakespeare's treatment of the Pigmies is not classical. 
They are mentioned by Homer in //. 3. 6, and described by 
Pliny in N. //. 7. 2 ; but Shakespeare's mention of them in 
connection with Prester John and the great Cham suggests 



Phoche — Priam 99 

rather such an author as Mandeville, Furness quotes Bat- 
man upon Bartholomc. 

Pluto.— Lucr. 553; H4B 2. 4- 169; Troil. 4. 4- 129; 5- 2. 102; 
5. 2. 153; Cor. I. 4. 36; Tit. 4. 3- 13; 4- 3- 37- 

Pkito is spoken of in each case as god of the lower world, 
but without any elaboration of allusion. The name Pluto 
occurs only once in Vergil, ^n. 7. 327, and in Ovid not at 
all. The name Dis, by which Ovid and Vergil designate the 
deity, is found in Shakespeare only twice, in each case in con- 
nection with the rape of Proserpina (q. v.) . The name Pluto 
occurs three times in Seneca. The phrase 'dusky Dis' of Tp. 
4. I. 89 is paralleled by 'Duskie Pluto' in Golding, p. 59a. 

Plutus.— Alls 5. 3- loi; Cses. 4. 3. 102; Troil. 3- 3- 197; I- i- 287. 

Plutus is, according to the passage in Tim., 'the god of 
gold' ; in C?es., 'dearer than Plutus' mine' is equivalent to 
'more precious than a gold mine.' In Alls he knows the 
secret of alchemy. He is not mentioned either by Ovid or 
Vergil. It has been noticed that in the passages cited from 
Caes. and Troil. the First Folio reads Pluto instead of Plutus. 
For a discussion of this fact see Notes and Queries, Ser. 9, 
Vol. 4, p. 265. The name is rightly printed in Alls and Tim. 

Priam (and Fall of Troy).— Lucr. 1448, 1466, 1485, i49o; H4B i. i. 
72; Alls I. 3. 77 \ Hml. 2. 2. 469-541; Tit. i. i. 80; 3- l- 69; 
• 5. 3. 80; H6B I. 4- 20; H6C 2. 5. 120; Shr. 3. i. 29 ff. 

Lucrece sees the death of Priam at the hands of Pyrrhus 
among the flames of the city depicted in her Troy-picture. 
The speech of the player in Hml, however, gives a much 
more detailed account. The Shakespearian authorship of 
the passage is, of course, open to serious question ; the fol- 
lowing theories have been advanced : that it is ( i ) a quota- 
tion from a lost play of Shakespeare; (2) an invention of 
Shakespeare for this occasion; (3) a burlesque of some 
particular play, e. g. Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage; 
(4) an excerpt from some play now lost. Some editors 
assert that Hamlet (and Shakespeare) really admires it; 



loo Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

others that it is introduced for satire. As far as the mythol- 
ogy of the speech goes, there is no reason why Shakespeare 
might not have written it. It is based on j^n. 2. 438-558, 
and the source is used with a freedom thoroughly charac- 
teristic of Shakespeare. The speech contains the following 
information : Pyrrhus leaves the wooden horse and seeks 
Priam. Priam has armed himself, and is attacking the 
Greeks with feeble sword. Pyrrhus strikes at him, and the 
mere whiff and wind of his sword overthrows the old king. 
At this moment flaming Ilium falls with hideous crash. 
Pyrrhus strikes again, and kills him. Hecuba, bare-foot and 
half clad, runs up and down in fear, and at sight of mur- 
dered Priam bursts into clamor. In Vergil we are told that 
Pyrrhus (Neoptolemus) was one of those concealed in the 
horse (1. 263). He attacks the palace in 1. 469 (Vergil 
speaks of the brassy gleam of his armor, while Shakespeare 
arms him in black). Priam arms himself at 1. 509: 

Arma diu senior desueta trementibus sevo 
Circumdat necquicquam humeris, et inutile ferrum 
Cingitur, ac densos fertur moriturus in hostes. 

In 1. 465 is described the fall of one of the towers of the 
palace : 

Ea lapsa repente ruinam 
Cum sonitu trahit, et Danaum super agmina late 
Incidit. 

Shakespeare utilizes this touch in the lines : 

Then senseless Ilium, 
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top 
Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash 
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear, 

dramatically transposing the order of events to make it coin- 
cident with the fall of Priam. (Shakespeare uses the name 
Ilium as a designation of Priam's palace, see Ilium.) 
Priam's death is transacted at 1. 554. Hecuba is present 
during the scene, but her scanty clothing is a touch of realism 
added by Shakespeare in characteristic manner. 



Priapns — Prometheus loi 

That Shakespeare was familiar with ^n. 2 is proved by 
his treatment of Sinon (q. v.) and by a simile in H4B : 
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, 
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone. 
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, 
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt; 
But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue. 

This would seem to be an inaccurate recollection or an 
intentional adaptation of JEn. 2. 268-297, where in a vision 
of the night 'mzestissimus Hector' appears weeping to 
^neas, and warns him of his danger; /Eneas awakes to 
find Troy in flames. 

The remaining allusions offer nothing of interest. In Tit. 
I the number of his sons is mentioned; in Shr. his name 
occurs in a quotation from Her. i. 33-34- The Priam of 
Troil. is only a minor personage, and his character is not 
developed. The few details of his action are drawn from 
Caxton. 

Priapus. — Per. 4. 6. 4. 

A type of lust. Cf. the story of Lotis in Fasti i. 415 seq., 
or the similar story in Fasti 6. 319 seq. 

Procris. — Mids. 5. i. 201, 202. See Cephalus. 

Progne. — Tit. 5. 2. 196. See Philomel. ' 

Prometheus.— LLL 4. 3. 304, 351 ; 0th. 5. 2. 12; Tit. 2. i. 17. 
Only in Tit. is Prometheus mentioned as the sufferer of 

Caucasus. To Shakespeare he is rather the fashioner of the 

human race, as Ovid represents him in Met. i. 82; (but cf. 

s. V. Tityus.) 

As Othello sees the candle burning by Desdemona's bed, 

he says : 

Put out the light, and then put out the light: 
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, 
I can again thy former light restore, 
Should I repent me : but once put out thy light, 
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, 
I know not where is that Promethean heat 
That can thy light relume. 



I02 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

And so in LLL we have an allusion to 'Promethean fire.' 
But Ovid mentions only earth and water as the ingredients 
of man. It is not strange, however, that this myth should 
have been confused with his theft of fire. In the Scholia 
to Horace. Lib. i, Od. 3 we find, 'Cum ignis e coelo furtim 
a Prometheo surreptus esset ad suas e terra fictas statuas 
animandas.' Cf. also Fulgentius, Mythologicon 2. 9. The 
idea may have reached Shakespeare through Spenser, F. Q. 
2, 10. 70: 

It told how first Prometheus did create 
A man, of many parts from beasts deryv'd. 
And then stole fire from heven to animate 
His worke. 

With the passage in LLL compare 

Thy favours, like Promethean sacred fire 
In dead and dull conceit can life inspire ; 

Marston, Pygmalion's Image (1598) Dedication, 11. 7. 8; 
and, 

In whose bright lookes sparkles the radiant fire, 
Wilie Prometheus slilie stole from Jove, 
Infusing breath, life, motion, soule, 
To everie object striken, by thine eies. 

The Taming of a Shrezv, Shak. Lib. Ft. II, Vol. 2, p. 510. 
Proserpina. — Troil. 2. i. 37; Tp. 4. i. 89; Wint. 4. 4. 116. 

In the first passage Thersites says : 'Thou art as full of 
envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at Proserpina's beauty.' 
For this I have found no specific antecedent. The two 
remaining passages refer to the rape of Proserpina by Dis. 
In the first Ceres says: 'Since they (i. e. Venus and Cupid) 
did plot The means that dusky Dis my daughter got.' In 
Wint., Perdita says : 

O Proserpina, 

For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall 

From Dis's waggon ! daffodils. 

That come before the swallow dares, and take 

The winds of March with beauty. 



Proserpina — Pygmalion 103 

She goes on to enumerate 'violets dim,' 'pale primroses,' 
'bold oxlips and the crown imperial,' 'lilies of all kinds, the 
flower-de-luce being one.' Ovid tells the story in Met. 5. 
359-550. The plotting of Venus and Cupid is described in 
1. 363 seq. (The Latin has 'Erycina,' but Golding substitutes 
'Venus.') The dropping of the flowers is given in 11. 389- 
99. As to the flowers themselves, we read in 1. 392, 'aut 
violas aut Candida lilia carpit.' In Fasti 4. 437-443 a longer 
list is given : 

Ilia legit calthas, huic sunt violaria curse, 

Ilia papavereas subsecat ungue comas: 

Has, hyacinthe, tenes; illas, amarante, moraris; 

Pars thynia, pars casiam, pars meliloton amant. 

Plurima lecta rosa est ; sunt et sine nomine flores. 

Ipsa crocos tenues liliaque alba legit. 

Proteus.— H6C 3. 2. 192. 

I can add colors to the chameleon, 

Change shapes with Proteus for advantages. 

With this compare Golding's expansion of the 'Proteaque 
ambiguum' of Met. 2. 9 (p. 17a) : 

Unstable Protew chaunging aye his figure and his hue 
From shape to shape a thousande sithes as list him to renue. 

A more detailed account is found in Georg. 4. 388 seq., itself 
a copy of Odyssey 4. 384 seq. 

It has been suggested that the fickle Proteus in Gent, is 
named with reference to the changeable water-divinity. 
Compare what is said of him in the article on Orpheus. 

Pygmalion. — Meas. 3. 2. 47. 

Lucio asks Pompey : 'What, is there none of Pygmalion's 
images, newly made woman?' which probably means, as 
Malone puts it: 'Is there no courtesan, who being nezvly 
made zvoman, i. e. lately debauched, still retains the appear- 
ance of chastity, and looks as cold as a statue?' Shakespeare 
may have learned the story from Met. 10. 243-297 ; but in 
1598 had been published The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion s 



I04 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Image by John Marston. It is perhaps worth while to quote 
a sentence from the 'Argument' : 'whereupon Venus, graci- 
ously condescending to his earnest suit, the maid (by the 
power of her deity) was metamorphosed into a living 
woman.' 

Pyramus and Thisbe. — Mids. passim; Rom. 2. 4. 45; Merch. 5. i. 
7; Tit. 2. 3. 231. 

The story of Pyramus and Thisbe is told in Met. 4. 55- 
166, in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women 706-923, and in 
other less artistic English versions, which Shakespeare may 
well have known. There had even been a brief play on the 
subject (see Preface to Temple ed., p. xi). It is impos- 
sible to say with any certainty whence Shakespeare drew 
his knowledge of the story. I have been unable to discover 
any verbal correspondences between Mids. and either Ovid 
or Chaucer. The allusion in Merch., however, seems to 
suggest Golding: 

In such a night (i. e. moonlight) 
Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew, 
And saw the lion's shadow ere himself, 
And ran dismay'd away. 

Golding says (p. 52b) : 

Whome (i. e. the lioness) Thisbe spying furst 

A farre by mooneliglit, thereupon with fearfuU steppes gan flie. 

In Rom. Thisbe is a type of beauty. In Tit. the allusion 
is to the death of Pyramus, and corresponds, though not 
verbally, with the Ovidian account. 

Pyrrhus. — Lucr. 1467 ; Hml. 2. 2. 472 ff. ; Troil. 3. 3. 209. 

For the first two references see Priam. In Troil. he 
is mentioned as 'young Pyrrhus,' son of Achilles, now at 
home in Greece, Cf. Caxton, p. 643. 

Rhesus. — H6C 4. 2. 20. See Ulysses. 

Rumor. — See Fame. 



Pyramns and Thisbe — Semiramis 105 

Saturn.— H4B 2. 4. 286; Ado i. 3. 12; Sonn. 98. 4; Cymb. 2. 5. 12; 
Tit. 2. 3. 31. 

Saturn is never in Shakespeare identified with the Greek 
Kronos as time, or represented as father of the gods. He is 
the 'melancholy god' referred to in Tw. 2. 4. 75, the cold, 
melancholy influence which makes men of a phlegmatic or 
'Saturnine' humor. Hence he is a planetary and astrologi- 
cal quantity rather than a mythological personage. 

Satyrs.— Hml. i. 2. 140; Wint. 4. 4. 334, 352. / 

The Satyrs play an unimportant part in Shakespeare's 
mythology. In Hml. a satyr is mentioned as a type of physi- 
cal ugliness. In Wint. there is a dance of Satyrs, or as the 
ignorant servant says, 'they have made themselves all men 
of hair, they call themselves Saltiers.' 

Scylla and Charybdis. — Merch. 3. 5. 19. 

Launce says : 'Thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall 
into Charybdis, your mother.' Scylla and Charybdis are 
described in ^n. 3. 420-432, and in Met. 13. 730-734, but 
the word 'shun' would show that Malone is right in referring 
the passage to the proverb 'Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens 
vitare Charybdim,' which he assigns to Philippe Gualtier, 
Alexandreis 5. 

Semiramis. — Tit. 2. i. 22; 2. 3. 118; Shr. Ind. 2. 41. 

In Tit. Semiramis is merely a type of lust. In Shr. the 
lord says to Sly : 

Or wilt thou sleep? we'll have thee to a couch 
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed 
On purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis. 

Semiramis, the legendary founder of Babylon, is only alluded 
to by Ovid. , A long account of her wars and of the magnifi- 
cent gardens she built is given by Diodorus Siculus 2. 1-20; 
but I am unable to find any reference to the 'lustful bed,' 
though her lascivious character is sufficiently indicated. 



io6 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Sibyl.— Merch. i. 2. 116; 0th. 3. 4. 70; Tit. 4. i. 105; H6A i. 2. 
56; Shr. I. 2. 70. 

The two allusions in the authentic plays lay stress on 
the Sibyl's age. Portia says in Merch. : 'If I live to be 
old as Sibylla' ; and in Oth. : 

A sibyl, that had number'd in the world 
The sun to course two hundred compasses, 
In her prophetic fury sew'd the work. 

The Cumsean Sibyl in Met. 14. 130-154 has lived 'ssecula 
septem' and has still three hundred years to live ; the age 
of the Sibyl is alluded to also in Fasti 3. 534 ; 4. 875. She 
is shown in "prophetic fury' in ^n. 6. 45 seq. and yy seq. 
Her age is also the point of allusion in Shr. In Tit. — 

The angry northern wind 
Will blow these sands, like Sibyl's leaves, abroad — 

we have a reminiscence of ^^n. 6. 74-76, where yEneas prays 
the Sibyl : 

Foliis tantum ne carmina manda 

Ne turbata volent rapidis ludibria ventis ; 

Ipsa canas, oro. 

In H6A : 

The spirit of deep prophecy she hath, 
Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome. 

Golding says (p. 176a) that the Cumsean Sibyl has the 
'spryght of prophesye.' There were commonly held to be ten 
Sibyls ; but they were not all 'of old Rome.' The number 
nine is doubtless due, as Warburton suggested, to con- 
fusion with the nine books brought by the Sibyl to Tarquin. 
The form 'Sibylla' of Merch. is paralleled in Bacon's 
Colors of Good and Evil 10, and Advancement of Learning 
2. 23, 33 (Rolfe), and in the Argument to Book 6 of 
Phaer's Vergil. 

J Sinon and Wooden Horse. — Lucr. 1501-1561 ; Hml. 2. 2. 476; 

Cymb. 3. 4. 61; Tit. 5. 3. 85; H6C 3. 2. 190; Per. i. 4. 93. 

Lucrece finds the story of Sinon pictured in a painting of 
the fall of Troy, and finds in his falseness a parallel to the 



Sibyl — Sirens 107 

falseness of Tarquin. The account she gives of the picture 
corresponds closely with ^n. 2. 13-267. Thus he is brought 
in bound by Phrygian shepherds, and it is Priam who receives 
him kindly ; cf. ^;j. 2. 57, 146. In the remaining passages 
we have mere allusions. In Cymb. his weeping is men- 
tioned ; cf. ^n. 2. 145. 

That Shakespeare read this passage of ^n. in the original, 
and not in Phaer, is shown by the use of the word Phrygian 
in Lucr. 1502. Cf. ^>i. 2. 68: 

Constitit atque oculis Phrygia agmina circumspexit. 

Phaer omits the name Phrygian. 

Sirens. — Err. 3. 2. 47; Mids. 2. i. 150; Sonn. 119. i; Tit. 2. i. 23. 
(Mermaid = Siren) Ven. 429; 777; Lucr. 141 1; Err. 3. 2. 45; 
Hml. 4. 7. 177; Ant. 2. 2. 212, 214 (?) ; H6C 3. 2. 186. 

The Sirens wdio seek to entrap Odysseus by their clear 
song in Od. 12. 166 seq. have the form of fair women, and 
later tradition represents them as half women and half birds ; 
but in medieeval England they had become identified with 
the mermaids of the northern mythology. Thus Gower, in 
Conf. Am. i. 58, describes a Siren as having the tail of a 
fish, and in Chaucer, mermaid is the regular word for Siren : 

Swich swete song was hem among, 
That me thoughte it no briddes song, 
But it was wonder lyk to be 
Song of mermaydens of the see ; 
That, for her singing is so clere, 
Though we mermaydens clepe hem here 
In English, as in our usaunce, 
Men clepen hem sereyns in Fraunce. 

Romaunt of the Rose 677-684. 

Cf. also Nonne Prcestes Talc 450. To Shakespeare, then, 
the two terms are interchangeable, as for example in Err., 
where both appear. In most of the passages cited above 
Shakespeare is alluding to the song of the Siren or mermaid, 
and for this it is not necessary to assign a definite source. 
By an obvious metaphor, Siren came to mean harlot, as in 



io8 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Horace, Sat. 2. 3, 14, and in this sense, perhaps, Shakespeare 
uses the word in Sonn. 199, i, and probably also in Tit 
Less classical and more Teutonic is the reference to the 
golden hair of the Sirens in Err. : 

Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs. 

One is of course reminded of Heine's Lorelei, but in Met. 
13. 738 the sea-nymph, Galatea, is found combing her locks. 
Of more difficulty is the apparent reference to 'Siren's 
tears' in Sonn. 119: 

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears; 

and in Err. : 

O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note. 
To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears. 

Classical literature furnishes no parallel ; nor have I been 
able to find any in the mermaid-stories of folk-lore. Only 
in the Bestiaire of Philippe de Thaun have I found any men- 
tion of tears. Cf. 11. 1361-64: 

Serena en mer hante, 
Cuntre tempeste chante 
E plure en bel tens, 
Itels est sis talenz. 

Farther on Philippe explains that the Sirens signify 'Les 
richeises del munt' : they weep 

Quant om dune richeise 
E pur De la depreise. 

Of course Shakespeare did not know Philippe. The line in 
Sonn. is probably to be explained by comparison with Psalm 
80. 5 : 'Thou feedest them with the bread of tears ; and 
givest them tears to drink in great measure.' 'Siren tears' 
may mean 'deceptive tears' ; but the meaning is not clear. 
In Err. the tears may be explained by the fact that Luciana's 
sister has really been weeping. 

Professor Cook has pointed out the fact that Mids. 2. i. 
150 ff. closely resembles a passage in Ariosto, Orlando 6. See 



sphinx — Sun-Divinities 1 09 

Academy, 30 Nov., 1889. As bearing on this latter passage 
it is to be noticed that Thetis rides on a dolphin's back in 
Met II, Golding, p. 143a and b. Cf. also Golding, p. 17a, 
where sea-nymphs ride on the backs of fishes. 

Sphinx.— LLL 4. 3. 342. 

'Subtle as Sphinx.' The monster Sphinx proposed a 
riddle to all whom she met ; when they failed to solve the 
riddle, she murdered them. CEdipus finally guessed the 
riddle, upon which the Sphinx killed herself. The familiar 
story is alluded to by Ovid in Ibis 375-376- 

Styx. — See Hades. 
Sun-Divinities. 

Under the name of Phoebus, or Titan, or Hyperion, or 
without special name, Shakespeare personifies the sun. 
Usually the personification is not elaborate, though the dark- 
skinned Cleopatra is 'with Phoebus' amorous pinches black,' 
Ant. I. 5. 28; and a woman exposed to the sun 'commits 
her nicely-gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil of Phoebus' 
burning kisses,' Cor. 2. i. 234. Similarly in Cymb. 3. 4. 166 
we read: 'exposing it (a cheek) to the greedy touch of 
common-kissing Titan,' as a parallel to which Steevens 
quotes from Sidney's Arcadia: '. . . and beautifull might 
have been, if they had not suffered greedy Phoebus, over- 
often and hard, to kisse them.' 

The terms Phccbus and Titan are used interchangeably, 
save that Titan is only once spoken of as driving a chariot, 
Rom. 2. 3.4; while in nine places Phoebus' chariot is men- 
tioned: Mids. I. 2. 37; Rom. 3. 2. 2 ; Ado 5. 3. 26; Hml. 
3. 2. 165 ; Ant. 4. 8. 29 ; Cymb. 2. 3. 22 ; Tp. 4- i- 30 5 Cymb. 
5. 5. 190 ; H6C 2. 6. II ; and in five passages the car of the 
sun is mentioned without mythological name : R3. 5. 3. 19 ; 
H4A 3. I. 221 ; Alls 2. I. 164; Tit. 2. I. 5 ; H6C 4. 7. 80. 
Twice, Ant. 4. 8. 29; Cymb. 5. 5. 190, the car is spoken of 
as 'carbuncled' (the palace of the sun is beset with car- 
buncles in Ovid, Golding, p. 17a). 



no Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

The treatment of Hyperion is somewhat different. In 
Troil. 2. 3. 207 ; Tit. 5. 2. 56, he is merely the sun. In H5. 
4. I. 290 a man rising at daybreak is said to 'rise and help 
Hyperion to his horse,' which suggests a mounted horse- 
man rather than the driver of a chariot. He is twice men- 
tioned in Hml. as a type of beauty : Hamlet's father was 
to the present king as 'Hyperion to a satyr' (i. 2. 140) ; and 
in 3. 4. 56 there is mention of 'Hyperion's curls.' This 
would seem to indicate that Shakespeare identifies Hyperion 
with 'flavus Apollo.' Properly Hyperion is not the sun, 
but a Titan, the father of Helios ; but Homer uses the name 
in a patronymic sense applied to Helios himself (Od. i. 8; 
12. 132; //. 8. 480), and later poets follow him, e. g. Met. 
15. 406; 8. 565. (It may be noticed in passing that Shake- 
speare falsely accents the word on the antepenultimate.) 

Tantalus.— Ven. 599. 

That worse than Tantalus' is her annoy, 
To clip Elysium and to lack her joy. 

The suffering of Tantalus is described in Od. 11. 582 seq. 
Though not found in Vergil, and only alluded to by Ovid 
(Met. 4. 458), the idea is none the less a commonplace in 
modern poetry. 

Tartarus. — See Hades. 

Telamon. — Ant. 4. 13. 2. See Ajax. 

1/ Tellus.— Hml. 3. 2. 166; Per. 4. i. 14. 

Tellus is a mere personification of the earth by its Latin 
name. In Hml. we have the phrase 'Tellus' orbed ground' ; 
in Per. the name is used as equivalent to earth. Shakespeare 
may have remembered that in North's Plutarch, Brutus, p. 
265, there is mention of a temple to 'the goddess Tellus, to 
wit the earth.' 

Tereus. — See Philomel. 



Tantalus — Thetis iii 

Thersites. — Cymb. 4. 2. 252; Troil. passim. 

In Cymb. Thersites is a mere type of worthlessness, con- 
trasted with Ajax as a type of manly valor. Apparently 
Shakespeare has his own Thersites in mind. The foul- 
mouthed railer and coward of Troil. is pretty certainly to be 
attributed to Homer, //. 2. 211-271, though a hint as to his 
character might have been learned from Met. 13. 233-34 : 

At ausus erat reges incessere dictis 
Thersites, etiam per me baud impune, protervis. 

Since Shakespeare gives to him many of the attributes of his 
clowns, it may be significant that Chapman calls him 'jester.' 

Theseus. 

The slight sketch of Theseus, Duke of Athens, as we have 
it in Mids., is to be traced to Plutarch's life of Theseus in 
North's translation. Chaucer in the Knightcs Tale men- 
tions the marriage of Theseus and Ipolita, but does not give 
the names of Theseus's former loves, Perigenia, ^gle, and 
Antiopa (Mids. 2. i. 78-80). These are given by North on 
pp. 41, 57, 68 (Temple ed.), though the name Perigenia 
appears as Perigouna. Shakespeare's spelling, Hippolyta, is 
also that of North. That she is an Amazon against whom 
Theseus has been making war is mentioned by North on pp. 
70-71. That Theseus is a kinsman of Hercules (Mids. 5. i. 
47) is provided for by North on p. 40. For Hippolyta's 
statement (Mids. 4. i. 116) — 

I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, 
When in a wood of Crete tbey bay'd the bear 
With hounds of Sparta — 

I find no authority either in Chaucer or North. Theseus 
is mentioned also in Gent. 4. 4. 173 (see Ariadne). 

Thetis. — Troil. i. 3. 39; Ant. 3. 7. 61; Per. 4. 4. 39. 

In Troil. and in Per. Thetis is merely a personification of 
the sea. In Ant., Antony calls Cleopatra his Thetis, probably, 
as Malone suggests, alluding to her voyage down the Cydnus. 



112 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Thetis is represented by Homer as sitting 'in the sea-depths 
beside her aged sire,' //. i. 358, etc. Ovid speaks of her 
as 'numen aqtiarum/ Am. 2. 14. 14. See also Met. 11. 221 
seq. Her name is used by metonymy for the sea only in 
later Latin authors. Cf. Martial 10. 13. 4, and Claudian, 
Rapt. Pros. i. 148; but Tethys is so used in Alet. 2. 69, 509. 
May Shakespeare have confused the two? 

Thisbe. — See Pyramus. 

Titan. — See Sun-divinities. 

Titania. 

The name given by Shakespeare to the queen of fairies 
in Mids. See Diana. 

Tityus (?).— H4B 5. 3. 146; Wiv. i. 3. 94; Lr. 2. 4. 137; Tit. 5. 2. 
31 ; H6A 4. 3. 47. 

Tityus is never mentioned by name in Shakespeare, but in 
the passages cited above the references to a vulture tearing at 
the vitals seem to suggest the fate of Tityus as described in 
^M. 6. 595-600 and Met. 4. 457. Perhaps they should 
rather be referred to Prometheus. Two of the speeches are 
spoken by Pistol. 

Triton. — Cor. 3. i. 89. 

Coriolanus calls Sicinius a 'Triton of the minnows,' and a 
few lines farther on speaks of 'the horn and noise of the 
monster.' Triton is described in Met. i. 333. 

Troilus and Cressida. — Merch. 5. i. 4; Wiv. i. 3. 83; H5. 2. i. 80; 
Ado 5. 2. 31; As 4. I. 97; Tw. 3. I. 59; Alls 2. i. 100; Troil. 
passim. 

It will be noticed at once that all these allusions outside 
of Troil. range within five years, 1596-1601, and that all but 
the first come between 1 599-1601. In Ado and As, Troilus 
alone is mentioned (humorously) as a 'pattern of love.' In 
the second of these instances Rosalind says : 'Troilus had 
his brains dashed out with a Grecian club.' This is not 



Thisbe — Ulysses 1 1 3 

related by Chaucer, but Caxton gives the following account 
(p. 639) : Then cam on Achilles whan he sawe troilus alle 
naked (i. e, deprived of his armor) And ran upon hym in a 
rage And smote of his heed And cast it under the feet of the 
horse And toke the body and bonde it to the taylle of his 
horse And so drewe hit after hym thurgh oute the ooste.' 
In Wiv., Tw., and Alls, Pandarus is the point of allusion, 
which in each case is playful. The only serious reference 
is in Merch. : 

The moon shines bright : in such a night as this, 

Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls 1 

And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents, 

Where Cressid lay that night, 

which is closely copied from Chaucer's Troylus 5. 648, 666, 
The source of the Troilus story in Troil. is to be found 
in Chaucer. I shall not attempt to notice the changes Shake- 
peare has introduced. See Stache, Das Verhaltniss von 
Shakespeares Troilus and Cressida su Chancers gleich- 
namigen Gedicht, Nordhausen, 1893, and R. A. Small, 
Stage-Quarrel, pp. 154-156. 

Troilus is mentioned as swounding in battle in the Troy- 
picture in Lucr. i486. A disparaging allusion to Cressid is 
made by Pistol in H5, 2. i. 80. 

Typhon.— Troil. i. 3- 160; Tit. 4. 2. 94. 

The name Typhon is used by Shakespeare rather indefinitely 
for 'giant.' Typhoeus was one of the giants who warred 
against the gods. Met. 5. 321. In this passage Golding 
substitutes 'Typhon' (p. 69a). The two names, originally 
distinct, had already become confused among the ancients. 

Ulysses.— Lucr. 1399; Cor. i. 3. 93; H6C 3. 2. 189; 4. 2. 19; Troil. 

passim. 

Caxton characterizes Ulysses as 'the moste fayr man among 
all the grekes/ But he was deceyvable And subtyll. And 
sayd his thynges loyously. He was a right grete lyar And 
was so well bespoken that he had none felawe ne like to 



114 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

hym' (p. 541). From Met. 13, also, where Ulysses dis- 
putes with Ajax over the arms of Achilles, we get a similar 
notion of his character, which is both in Caxton and Ovid a 
natural development of Homer's 'Odysseus of many counsels.' 
In the Troy-painting in Lucr. he is depicted near Ajax: 

But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent 
Show'd deep regard and smiling government. 

The phrase 'sly Ulysses' occurs several times in Golding (pp. 
1 60b, 167a) where the original shows no equivalent. It was 
apparently his stock epithet in Shakespeare's time. The 
'mild glance' suggests Golding, p. 162a (Met. 13. 125) : 

(He) raysed soberly his eyliddes from the ground 

On which he had a little whyle them pitched in a stound. 

In H6C 3. he is again a type of sly deceit. In Act 4 of the 
same play we have a reference to the capture of Rhesus' 
steeds : 

That as Ulysses and stout Diomede 

With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents, 

And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds. 

This exploit is described at length in Iliad 10, and forms the 
subject of one of Euripides' dramas, and is several times 
alluded to in Ovid {Art. 2. 137; Met. 13. 249) ; but none of 
these authorities explain the word fatal. In his comment 
on ^n. I. 469, Servius, however, explains: 'quibus pende- 
bant fata Troiana ; ut si pabulo Troiano usi essent vel e 
Xantho Troije fluvio bibissent, Troia perire non posset.' 

Penelope and the yarn spun in Ulysses' absence are men- 
tioned in Cor. I. 3. 92. The ultimate source is of course 
Odyssey 19. 149 seq., but the story is mentioned in Her. i. 10 
(from which Shakespeare quotes in Shr.). For so familiar 
an incident it is impossible to name a definite source. 

The character of Ulysses in Troil. presents no divergences 
from the conception stated above. Cf. Ajax. 

Venus. 

The conception of Venus shown in Shakespeare's earliest 
production, Venus and Adonis, that of goddess of lust rather 



Venus 115 

than of love, is the usual conception in the dramas. A line 
from Golding's Preface to his Ovid (p. ib) shows that the 
conception is not peculiar to Shakespeare ; we are told to 
understand 

By Venus such as of the fleshe too filthie lust are bent. 

Of the nobler Greek conception of Aphrodite there is no 
hint, nor is there mention of her birth from the sea-foam. 

Venus is mentioned by name 23 times, exclusive of Ven. ; 
as Cytherea 5 times ; and as Love (followed by feminine 
pronoun) 6 times. Save for the five occurrences in Troil., 
these mentions are largely in the earlier plays, only seven 
coming later than 1600 (Ant. 3 times, Tp. once, Cymb. 
twice, Wint. once). 

Of the attributes of Venus, her doves are mentioned seven 
times: Ven. 153; 1190; Mids. i. i. 171; Lucr. 58; Rom. 
2. 5. 7; Merch. 2. 6. 5 ('pigeons') ; Tp. 4. i. 94. In the last 
of these passages she is 'cutting the clouds towards Paphos, 
and her son dove-drawn with her.' (Cf. also Per. 4. Ind. 
32.) The doves are frequently mentioned by Ovid, e. g. 
Met. 14. 597. Their significance is explained in Rom. 2, 5. 
7. Paphos is mentioned in the story of Venus and Adonis, 
Met. 10. 530. She is mentioned as mother of Cupid in Tp. 
(v. supra) and in LLL 2. i. 254. She is several times a 
type of beauty: Troil. 3. i. 34; Ant. 2. 2. 205; Cymb. 2. 
2. 14; 5. 5, 164; Wint, 4. 4. 122 (i. e. in later plays). At 
times she is confused with the star named after her, either 
with or Vv^ithout astrological significance : Mids. 3. 2. 61 ; 3. 
2. 107 ; H4B 2. 4. 268 ; Tit. 2. 3. 30 ; H6A i. 2. 144. As an 
astrological influence she is opposed to Saturn. 

Most serious and noble of the allusions to Venus is that 
in Mids. i. i. 171 where Hermia swears to Lysander, 

By the simplicity of Venus' doves, 

By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves. 

In the latter line Furness sees an allusion to the cestus of 
Venus. Shakespeare might have read of it in Martial 6. 13, 
but it is more fully described in Iliad 14. 214, 'the embroid- 



ii6 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

ered girdle, fair-wrought, wherein are all enchantments ; 
therein are love, and desire, and loving converse, that steals 
the wits even of the wise.' 

For Venus in her relations to Adonis, Mars, Vulcan, 
Anchises, see under those heads. 

Love is frequently personified without demonstrable refer- 
ence to either Cupid or Venus. A notable example is LLL 
4- 3- 344 : 

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods 
Make heaven drowsy with the harmony. 

\J Vulcan.— Ado i. i. 187; Tw. 5. i. 56; Hml. 3. 2. 89. Troil. i. 3. 
168; 5. 2. 170; Tit. 2. I. 89. 

Shakespeare knows Vulcan as the blacksmith divinity, 
forging armor in the depths of the earth (Troil. 5), a con- 
ception which may be traced to ^n. 8. 407-453 or Iliad 18 
369 seq. His grimy face is alluded to in Tw. and in Hml. : 

If his (the king's) occulted guilt 
Do not itself unkennel in one speech, 
It is a damned ghost that we have seen. 
And my imaginations are as foul 
As Vulcan's stithy; 

of which Delius says : 'The connection of thought between 
Vulcan's realm and the Christian hell whence the "damned 
ghost" issues is very common among Shakespeare's con- 
temporaries.' 

In Troil. i. 3. 168: 'As like as Vulcan and his wife,' i. e. 
unlike. We are told by Ovid in Art. 2. 569 that Venus used 
often to amuse Mars by imitating her husband's awkward 
manners. He is alluded to as a type of cuckold in Tit. 
(see Mars). 



PART SECOND 



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE SEVERAL WORKS 

(The plays and poems are treated in what the author believes to be the 
approximate chronological order.) 

Venus and Adonis. 

The story of Venus and Adonis as told by Shakespeare 
is a combination of two O vidian stories (see s. v. Adonis) ; 
but of Ovidian allusions in the course of the poem we have 
but 2 — a reference to Narcissus, and one to the intrigue 
of Mars and Venus. Cupid is mentioned once by name, 
and twice by implication. There are 4 allusions to the 
divinities as nature-personifications. A reference to Tan- 
talus and Elysium is the only possible Vergilian indebted- 
ness. 

Love's Labor's Lost. 

Critics are substantially agreed in considering LLL 
Shakespeare's earliest independent drama, but the proba- 
bility that it received a considerable revision in 1598 makes 
it unsafe to use the play as a basis for any generalization as 
to the poet's treatment of mythology in his earliest period. 
The numerous allusions of a playful or humorous charac- 
ter, especially in the speeches of Biron, suggest the manner 
of such plays as Ado or As rather than that of the earlier 
works. 

The play contains 38 mythological allusions (-|- an oath 
by Jove, and numerous mentions of Hector, who appears as 
one of the Nine Worthies) ; but, although the allusions are 
numerous and varied, they are neither very definite nor very 
artistic. Cupid is mentioned 10 times, always playfully, 
Venus twice, and Love twice. Jove is twice referred to in 
erotic connection, and in one of these instances Juno is 
mentioned with him. Nature-nymph appears but once in a 



I20 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

pedantic speech of Holofernes. Other divinities mentioned 
are: Bacchus, Mercury as orator, Apollo as patron of 
music, Mars. Of the 8 allusions to mythological matter 
contained in Ovid, 6 are to Hercules, and only one, a refer- 
ence to Argus, is at all definite. There is no suggestion of 
Vergilian influence, though several heroes of the Trojan 
war are mentioned incidentally. Eighteen of the mytholog- 
ical allusions are in speeches of Biron. 

Comedy of Errors. 

Though Err. is modeled on a classical original, classical 
mythology appears but little in its dialogue. There are 
only 6 mythological allusions, 2 of them humorous. 

Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

Of the 8 mythological allusions in Gent., 5 are definite, 
and 3 vague. Of the former, 2 are to Hero and Leander, 
and the remaining 3 to Ovidian fable. Though neither 
Cupid nor Venus is mentioned by name, there are 12 men- 
tions of Love with attributes of Cupid (or Venus). Nature- 
myth is represented only in an oath by the 'pale queen of 
night.' Save in an oath by Jove, the gods do not appear at 
all ; nor is the Trojan war ever alluded to. The allusions 
all occur in speeches of the serious characters. The date 
of Gent, is very uncertain ; it has been placed as early as 
1590, and as late as 1595. The relatively large proportion 
of Ovidian allusions would lead us to place it near Merch., 
while the small number of the allusions, and the total 
absence of the divinities, suggest the manner of Err. 

The Rape of Lucrece. 

Though the date of Lucr. is uncertain, its publication in 
1594 and the general character of its composition lead the 
critics to assign it to about the same period as Gent., an 
assignation which is borne out by an examination of the 
mythology of the two pieces. The mythology in Lucr. is 
largely confined to the elaborate description of the painting 



Comedy of Errors— Merchant of Venice 121 

in the house of Liicrece, depicting scenes from the Trojan 
war, a description which shows evident famiharity with 
^n. 2. Ovidian story is represented by 4 allusions. A 
personification of night is the only instance of nature-myth, 
while an appeal to 'high almighty Jove,' and a reference to 
the doves of Venus, are the only mentions of the divinities. 

King Richard II. 

R2 contains 6 mythological allusions : one to Neptune as 
the sea, 2 to Mars as god of war, one to the shears of des- 
tiny, one to Troy, and one of Ovidian origin to 'glistering 
Phaeton,' who 'wanted the manage of unruly jades.' This 
last is the only definite allusion. The paucity of mytholog- 
ical allusion in this and the two histories belonging to the 
same period is to be explained in part at least by the char- 
acter of their subjects. Among scenes of battle and mur- 
der the graceful stories of Ovid seem out of place. The 
single Ovidian allusion is spoken by the poetical Richard. 

King Richard III. 

Of the 5 mythological allusions in R3, 2 are to Mer- 
cury as the winged messenger of Jove, one to the chariot 
of the sun, one to Lethe as the river of forgetfulness, and 
one an elaborate reference to the Vergilian Hades. 

King John. 

There are 8 mythological allusions in K. J., distributed 
one each among the following subjects : Neptune as the sea. 
Mars as the god of war, Mercury as the messenger. Ate as 
spirit of discord, Hercules, the Amazons, Rumor, the shears 
of Destiny. None of the allusions is at all definite, and 
none is to Ovidian story nor to the Trojan war. 

Merchant of Venice. 

Though several plays have a larger number of allusions 
than Merch., in none is mythology employed with greater 
appropriateness and beauty. Of the 28 mythological allu- 



122 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

sions, 13 are detailed, and several are highly elaborate. Of 
these detailed allusions, 10 are to Ovidian story. To Medea 
and Jason there are 3 separate allusions, though the myth is 
no where else referred to in the authentic plays. Nature- 
myth appears twice. Cupid is twice mentioned, and other 
divinities 5 times. It is to be noticed that mythological 
allusion is entirely absent from the serious scenes of Act 4 
(the trial), but that it is especially frequent in the garden 
scene of Act 5. Except for 3 humorous allusions spoken 
by Launcelot Gobbo, the mythology is confined to the high 
comedy characters. It is introduced mainly as simile or 
metaphor. Merch. should probably be attributed to 1594- 
1596, though the date is very uncertain. 

Midsummer Night's Dream. 

There are 37 mythological allusions in Mids., exclusive of 
references to Theseus, who is one of the characters of the 
play. (Py ramus and Thisbe is counted as one allusion.) 
The influence of Ovid, though much less than in Merch., is 
yet rather strong ; there are 5 references to definite Ovidian 
myth, and in five or six other allusions Ovid's influence 
may be discovered. Of Vergil there is but slight trace, and 
a single reference to Helen's beauty is the only hint of 
the Trojan war. The number of nature-myths is noticeable ; 
8 such personifications occur in the play. Of other divin- 
ities, Diana is twice mentioned as patroness of chastity, and 
Venus 3 times as goddess of love, rather than of lust as 
usually in Shakespeare. Cupid is named in 6 passages with 
more seriousness than in any other play. 

If we divide the 37 allusions in the play among the three 
sets of characters composing the dramatis personce, we find 
that 15 fall to the high comed)^ characters, 10 to the mechan- 
icals and their play of Pyramus and Thisbe, and the remain- 
ing 12 to the fairy personages. In this latter group fall 5 
of the 8 nature-myths, and many of the most delicate and 
beautiful allusions of the play. The fairies speak of 
Hecate's team and of Cupid as objects of their own expe- 



Midsummer Night's Dream — King Henry IV 123 

rience, and in general use mythology with great appropriate- 
ness. The mechanicals, of course, bungle their mythology 
terribly, giving us 'Shefalus and Procrus,' 'Helen and 
Limander,' 'Phibbus' car,' and 'Ercles,' 

Romeo and Juliet. 

Of the 25 mythological allusions in Rom., 4 are to nature- 
myths connected with the sun or moon, 3 to Venus as god- 
dess of love, 10 to Cupid — when his name is mentioned the 
allusion is always playful, but Love with attributes of Cupid 
is treated more seriously — 2 to Diana as patroness of chas- 
tity. Of distinctly O vidian origin are the references to the 
cave of Echo and to Phaeton. Playful mentions of Dido 
and of Helen as types of beauty constitute the only allusions 
to Vergil or to the Trojan war. All but 5 of the allusions 
in Rom. occur in the first two acts. This absence of mytho- 
logical allusion in the closing acts explains the comparative 
paucity of the allusions. It is generally admitted that Rom. 
received its final form in 1 595-1 596, though a first draft 
may have been written as early as 1591. 

King Henry IV, Part I. 

The 12 m}'thological allusions in H4A do not differ 
greatly in subject matter from those of the earlier histories. 
Mars (2) as war-god, and Minerva ( ?) in the same capacity, 
Mercury, Hydra, and the chariot of the sun are mentioned 
by the serious characters ; Falstafif, in a speech of delicate 
humor, mentions Diana in her double capacity as goddess 
of the moon and of the chase, speaks of Phoebus and Titan 
as sun-divinities, and compares his valor to that of Her- 
cules ; but there are no instances of ridiculous allusion such 
as are to be found in the speeches of Pistol in H4B. The 
play may safely be assigned to 1596 or 1597. 

King Henry IV, Part II. 

Beginning with H4B we have a group of plays in which 
the mythological allusion assumes a playful, humorous, 



124 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

or even farcical character. Of the playful or humorous 
treatment Wiv., Ado, and As offer the best examples ; of 
the farcical treatment the best instance is furnished by the 
ranting speeches of Pistol in the present play. In consid- 
ering the mythology of H4B, it is necessary to separate this 
mass of ridiculous allusion, spoken by Pistol and the other 
tavern-frequenters, from the allusions of the serious person- 
ages. The mythology of the blank-verse characters is like 
that of the other histories. There are 7 such references, 
distributed as follows: Rumor (2) (she appears once on 
the stage dressed like Vergil's Fama), Neptune as the sea, 
Mars (2) as war-god, Lethe as the river of forgetfulness, 
Hydra (probable contamination with the Argus-myth), and 
one allusion to Priam and the fall of Troy, which indicates 
direct borrowing from ^n. 2 (see s. v. Priam). In the 
speeches of Pistol mythological allusion is continual and 
absurd. Though it is impossible to trace many of his allu- 
sions, they seem in the main to be Vergilian rather than 
Ovidian; Pistol is especially fond of the mythology of the 
infernal regions. Six allusions are made by the other prose 
characters, among which we find two references of Ovidian 
origin. H4B may be dated 1598. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. 

The 12 mythological allusions in Wiv. are all more or 
less humorous. Four of them are spoken by Pistol. Of 
distinctly Ovidian source are Mrs. Page's allusion to the 
giants buried under Mount PeHon, Falstaff's elaborate ref- 
erence to Jove and Europa, and the two mentions of Actaeon. 
The total absence of nature-myth is to be remarked. Wiv. 
was written in 1599, directly after H4B. 

King Henry V. 

H5 furnishes a contrast to the other plays of the same 
period in the greater seriousness of its mythology. Of the 
18 allusions, only one, a reference by Pistol to Parca's fatal 
web, is of a humorous nature. Of ultimate Ovidian origin 



Merry Wives of Windsor — As You Like It 125 

are an erroneous reference to Perseus and Pegasus and a 
mention of the pipe of Hermes, both in a speech by the 
Dauphin. Mars appears twice as god of war, and the 
winged Mercury is once mentioned. Of nature-myth we 
find 4 instances. H5 was written in 1599. 

Much Ado About Nothing. 

The mythology of Ado is overwhehiiingly humorous in 
its character. Of the 30 allusions, 25 are playful, and of 
the remaining 5, three occur in passages of rimed verse. 
There are 10 references to Cupid, all playful. Nature-myth 
occurs twice. Diana appears twice as patroness of chastity, 
Venus once as goddess of lust, and Vulcan as carpenter. 
There are but 2 distinctly Ovidian allusions — to the story 
of Philemon and Baucis and to Europa. Twelve of the 
allusions are spoken by Benedick, and two by Beatrice. 
Date, 1599. 

As You Like It. 

The more poetical character of As and Tw. explains the 
greater seriousness of the mythological allusion in these 
plays as compared with Ado. Of the 27 allusions in As 
only 13 are humorous. For the same reason, perhaps, the 
influence of Ovid asserts itself strongly again in As. There 
are 7 instances of direct Ovidian allusion, while 4 other pas- 
sages are suggestive of Ovid's influence. Of these 11 
Ovidian passages, only 3 are humorous. Nature-myth 
appears only once, where Diana is addressed as thrice- 
crowned queen of night' in a love-poem of Orlando. Of 
the divinities representing ethical qualities, we have Diana 
twice as a type of chastity and Cupid 4 times as love-god — 
he is mentioned twice by name and twice by. implication, 
once seriously in a speech by the pastoral Silvius ; Juno is 
patroness of marriage, and Hymen appears on the stage in 
the same capacity. There are two Troy-allusions — to Helen 
and to Troilus. Date, 1600. 



126 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Twelfth Night. 

If we except numerous mentions of Jove (= God) in 
speeches of Malvolio and Feste, there remain 15 mythologi- 
cal allusions in Tw. Of these, 7 are of the playful sort so 
common in the other plays of the same period, but the 
remaining 8 are allusions of a peculiar grace and appro- 
priateness. Such is the Duke's veiled allusion to Actseon 
in the lines : 

That instant was I turn'd into a hart; 
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, 
E'er since pursue me. 

So, too, his reference to the 'rich golden shaft' of love. 
Still another graceful Ovidian allusion is the sea-captain's 
comparison of Sebastian bound to the mast with Arion on the 
dolphin's back. Mercury appears as the inspirer of lying, 
Vulcan as the blacksmith, and Diana as the tender maiden ; 
probably Saturn is the 'melancholy god' referred to by Feste 
in 2. 4. 75. These are the only mentions of the greater 
divinities ; nature-myth does not occur at all. Humorous 
mentions of Troilus and Cressida, Penthesilea, and the 
Myrmidons constitute the only Troy-allusions. The play 
was written in 1601. 

All's Well That Ends Well. 

The date of Alls is very uncertain ; Lee, on the assump- 
tion that it is the 'Love's Labors Won' mentioned by Meres, 
assigns it to 1595 ; Gollancz believes that it was first written 
in 1590-92, and revised in 1602. Perhaps the majority of 
critics would assign it to the same period as Hml. — some- 
where between 1601 and 1602; and the mythology of the 
play would tend to support such an assignment. Of the 25 
mythological allusions, few are more than mere conventional 
references. Seven of them, spoken by the boasting coward 
Parolles, suggest the manner of the preceding comedies ; 
while the paucity of Ovidian allusion, and the more frequent 
mention of the divinities, connect the play with Hml. and 
the dramas which follow. The nature-mythology is con- 



Twelfth Night— Hamlet 127 

fined to single mentions of Iris as the rainbow, Hesperus, 
and the horses of the sun ; Diana appears 3 times as patro- 
ness of chastity, Cupid is twice mentioned playfully, and 
Plutus appears as god of riches. There are but 2 Ovidian 
allusions. Of Troy-allusions we have humorous references 
to Pandar, and to Helen as the cause of the Trojan war. 

Troilus and Cressida. 

The mythology of Troil. is discussed at length in the 
Introduction, pp. 17-19. 

The Sonnets. 

Without attempting to pronounce on the date of the Son- 
nets, I have followed Furnivall's order, and considered them 
as belonging to this general period. They contain but 10 
mythological allusions, of which none is of much signifi- 
cance. Cupid appears 3 times ; Diana, Mars, and Saturn 
once each. The only trace of Ovidian myth is in an allusion 
to Adonis. There is no instance of nature-myth. 

Hamlet. 

In considering the mythology of Hml., it is necessary to 
distinguish between the speeches of the players in the 
'Mouse Trap' and the long account of Priam's death, and 
the speeches of the regular characters of the drama. If, 
then, we except the speeches of the players, we find 19 
mythological allusions, of which 14 are spoken by Hamlet 
himself. Hamlet is a scholar and a thinker, so that the 
frequency of his classical allusion is in perfect accord with 
his character. Serious use of nature-myth occurs three 
times in speeches of the scholar, Horatio. 

Turning now to the speeches of the players, we find first 
a long account of the fall of Troy, certainly to be referred 
to ^n. 2 (see s. v. Priam), and in the course of the speech 
another direct Vergilian allusion in the mention of the 
Cyclops as forging armor for Mars. In the 'Mouse Trap' 
we find conventional allusions to Neptune, Tellus, the car 



128 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

of Phoebus, Hymen, and Hecate. Except for the mention 
of Tellus, there is nothing in the mythology of the players' 
speeches to cast doubt on their Shakespearian authorship. 
Considering the play as a whole, one is impressed by the 
paucity of Ovidian reference, and by the relatively frequent 
traces of Vergil's influence. Hml. was probably written 
in 1601-1602. (See further what is said of the mythology 
of the play in the Introduction, p. 9.) 

Julius Caesar. 

The mythology of Cses. consists of only 5 allusions, of 
which one is to ^neas and Anchises, one to Erebus, one 
to Ate, and 2 to Olympus, with a possible sixth allusion to 
Deucalion's flood. This absence of mythology is in keeping 
with the studied severity of style in which the play is con- 
ceived and executed. Caes. was certainly written in 1601. 

Measure for Measure. 

In Meas. Shakespeare's mythological allusion reaches its 
lowest ebb. There are but 2 allusions — one to Jove as the 
thunderer, spoken by Isabel, and a humorous reference to 
the myth of Pygmalion's image, spoken by Lucio. The play 
is usually assigned to 1604. 

Othello. 

There are 11 mythological allusions in Oth., of which 6 
are in speeches of Othello himself. Written in 1604. (See 
further what is said of this play in the Introduction, p. 12.) 

Macbeth. 

There are but 8 mythological allusions in Mcb., and of 
these all but one are to the more terrible or destructive ele- 
ments of ancient religion. There is one instance of nature- 
myth in a mention of Neptune. Neither Ovidian myth nor 
the Trojan war receives any mention. All the allusions 
occur in speeches of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, or the witches. 
Written in 1604-1606. (See further in Introduction, p. 12.) 



Julius Cccsar — Timon of Athens 129 

King Lear. 

Besides oaths by Juno, Jove, Apollo, and Hecate, which 
Shakespeare introduces to indicate the pagan setting of the 
play, there are 5 clear mythological allusions in Lr., and 2 
probable allusions facito nomine. Lear himself appeals to 
'high- judging Jove,' 'the thunder-bearer,' uses the Centaur 
as a type of human nature, half man, half beast, and in grim 
mad humor calls the eyeless Gloucester 'blind Cupid.' Of 
his own suffering he speaks in words which seem to sug- 
gest the punishments of Ixion and of Tityus. Kent, in a 
mocking speech, speaks of 'flickering Phoebus' front' ; and, 
overcome by the trickery of Oswald, compares himself to 
blunt Ajax cozened by the false Ulysses. This last is the 
only distinct Ovidian allusion in the play. Lr. is to be 
assigned to 1605. 

Timon of Athens. 

Though Tim. is commonly attributed to 1607- 1608, the 
date is so uncertain that I feel justified in assigning it on 
mythological grounds to the period of Mcb. and Lr., rather 
than to that of Cor. and Cymb. Both in the number and 
the character of its mythological allusions it serves as a 
bridge between the paucity of allusion in Lr. and the abun- 
dant allusion of Ant. The 11 mythological allusions are, 
with two exceptions, to divinities who* personify either the 
powers of nature or the moral influences in the life of man. 
In the first of these categories we find mentions of Neptune 
and Hyperion, and of the moon as sister of the sun. Per- 
haps, too, the Jove who 'o'er some high-viced city hangs 
his poison in the sick air' is thought of, in part at least, as 
divinity of the sky. In the second category are Mars, 
Diana, Plutus, Cupid, and Hymen. Cupid appears on the 
stage with a masque of ladies as Amazons. The remaining 
allusion is to the Phoenix. 

It is generally admitted that Tim. is only in part the work 
of Shakespeare ; but the task of dividing the Shakes- 
pearian from the non-Shakespearian is a ticklish one. If 
9 



130 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

we may accept provisionally the division given by Gollancz 
in the preface to the Temple ed., we find that the masque in 
which Cupid and the ladies appear is not genuine ; but that 
all the other mythological allusions occur in the genuine 
portions, with possible exception of the allusion to Plutus. 
With these exceptions, then, the mythology of the play may 
be thought of as Shakespeare's. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

In the series of great tragedies, classical mythology plays 
a quite insignificant part ; but in Ant. and Cor. it suddenly 
reasserts itself with surprising vigor ; from the 7 allusions 
of Lr. and the 11 of Tim., we jump in Ant. to 39 allusions, 
covering a considerable range of subject. A chief charac- 
teristic of the mythology in plays of this period is the fre- 
quent allusion to the greater divinities. Jove appears as 
supreme god, as thunderer, and as the sender of rain — 6 
times in all, exclusive of a few colorless allusions occasioned 
by the pagan setting of the play. Mars is mentioned 3 
times, Venus 3 times, and Cupid, Mercury, and Bacchus 
once each. There are 5 instances of nature-myth. Ovidian 
myth is represented by 6 allusions. The Troy-story is 4 
times alluded to — Hector as a type of bravery, Ajax twice 
(of Ovidian origin), and Dido and ^Eneas as famous lovers. 
The only other evidences of Vergilian influence are in ref- 
erences to Lethe (2), Elysium, and a snake-crowned Fury. 

Eleven of the allusions are spoken by Antony, and 10 by 
Cleopatra; the rest are distributed among a number of 
characters. The play was probably written in 1607-1608. , 

Coriolanus. 

Of the 26 mythological allusions in Cor., 16 are refer- 
ences to the greater divinities (oaths by Jupiter and Juno 
are excluded from consideration). Jupiter as supreme god 
and as thunderer is mentioned 5 times ; Juno as a type of 
anger and jealousy, twice ; Mars as god of war or as a type 
of military valor, 5 times ; Phoebus as the sun, Neptune 



Antony and Cleopatra — Tempest 131 

with his trident, Diana as type of chastity, and Pluto as 
god of the lower world, once each. There are 4 Troy-allu- 
sions. The date of Cor. must fall between 1608 and 1610. 

Cymbeline. 

If we exclude from consideration the elaborate masque in 
5. 4, the authenticity of which has been doubted, and the 
incidental references to Jove which mark the pagan back- 
ground of the play, we find 31 mythological allusions in 
Cymb. About 75 per cent, of these allusions have to do 
with the greater divinities, while the Ovidian allusion con- 
sists of single references to the tale of Tereus and to the 
madness of Hecuba. 

In the masque of Act 5, Jove descends in thunder and 
lightning, credited with many of the attributes of the 
Hebrew Jehovah, and in the course of the dialogue occur 
allusions to Lucina and to Elysium. One passage strongly 
suggests an incident of the Iliad to which Shakespeare had 
already alluded in Troil. (see s. v. Mars). There is nothing 
in the mythology of this masque to mark it as un-Shake- 
spearian, 1609-1610. (See further in Introduction, p. 13.) 

Tempest. 

Mythology enters largely into the stage machinery of Tp. ; 
Ariel disguises himself as a water-nymph, and as a Harpy, 
in the latter disguise snatching away a banquet in a manner 
evidently suggested by a Vergilian episode ; into Act 4 is 
inserted an elaborate masque, occupying 57 lines, in which 
Juno, Ceres, Iris, and 'certain nymphs' appear. In the 
course of this masque we find allusions to the intrigue of 
Mars and Venus, and to the rape of Proserpina ; but these 
are the only Ovidian stories alluded to in the play, though 
Prospero's incantation in 4. i is indebted to Golding's ver- 
sion of Met. 7. Besides the passages referred to above, 
there are 7 mythological allusions in the play, of which 5 are 
to nature-divinities. The allusions always occur in speeches 
of the higher characters. Tp. is generally assigned to 
1610-1611. 



132 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Winter's Tale. 

If we except the frequent references to Apollo, occasioned 
by the consultation of his oracle — a detail of the plot which 
Shakespeare took from the novel which forms his main 
source for the drama — and except also two references to 
Jove (= God) due to the pagan setting of the play, we 
have left 13 m3'thological allusions in Wint. Of these 13 
allusions, one, a mention of Jove's thunder, occurs in Act 3 ; 
one, a use of Neptune, by metonymy, for the sea, is in Act 
5 ; all the rest fall in Act 4, the act of idyllic love-making 
and pastoral life. From the stern scenes of the earlier 
acts mythology is quite excluded. Even within Act 4 the 
mythology is confined to a few speeches : 4 of the allusions 
are spoken by Florizel in the course of 30 consecutive 
lines, and 4 are spoken by Perdita in the course of only 8 
lines. The 4 allusions spoken by Florizel are taken over 
bodily from Dorastns and Faivnia, and thus lose much 
of their significance. They mention transformations of 
Jupiter, Neptune, and Apollo ; for the last divinity Shake- 
speare has added the epithet 'fire-robed,' and for Neptune 
the adjective 'green,' thus emphasizing their physical bases. 
Perdita's charming speech beginning : 

O Proserpina, 
For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall 
From Dis's waggon ! 

indicates definite acquaintance with Ovid ; and the name 
Autolycus, and the reference to Deucalion, are also of Ovid- 
ian origin. 



Plays of Doubtful Authenticity 133 

Plays of Doubtful Authenticity. 

Titus Andronicus. 

The mythology of Tit. is discussed at length in the 
Introduction, pp. 15-17. 

Henry VI. Pt. I. 

H6A contains 18 mythological allusions, of which 4 are 
to Ovidian material, 4 to the divinities, 4 to the Troy-story. 
Most of the mythological personages appear as types of 
some moral quality. Nature-myth does not occur. The 
treatment of the mythology does not differ essentially from 
that in the earlier of the authentic plays ; but several of the 
myths alluded to do not appear in the genuine works — such 
are the allusions to the Minotaur, Icarus, Astrsea, Nemesis, 
and the gardens of Adonis. One may add, too, that the 
typical use of mythology is not usual in Shakespeare till a 
later period. 

Henry VI. Pt. II. 

The 13 mythological allusions of H6B resemble those of 
H6A, save that they appear in formal simile rather than as 
mere types. Three are to Ovid, 4 to the divinities, and 5 
to the Troy-story. Allusions to Medea and Absyrtus, to 
Iris as messenger rather than as rainbow, to the brazen 
caves of ^olus, and to the incident of Telephus wounded 
and cured by the spear of Achilles, find no counterpart in 
the dramas of unquestioned authenticity. 

Henry VI. Pt. III. 

Of the 24 allusions in H6C, 10 have to do with the Trojan 
war, 6 with Ovidian story, and 6 with the divinities, includ- 
ing 2 instances of nature-myth. They are usually intro- 
duced in simile. An elaborate allusion to Daedalus and 
Icarus is strongly suggestive of two similar allusions in 
H6A. The mention of the 'fatal steeds' of Rhesus, and 
their capture by Ulysses and Diomede, is distinctly non- 
Shakespearian. ■ 



134 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare 

Taming of the Shrew. 

If we could be sure that the play as it stands is merely 
Shakespeare's working over of the older Taming of a 
Shreiv, it would be possible to ascribe to Shakespeare all 
the mythology of the existing play, for none of the allu- 
sions is to be found in the old play ; but the probability 
that the play represents further collaboration makes such an 
ascription unsafe. The mythology of Shr, is overwhelm- 
ingly Ovidian ; of the 13 allusions, 9 are to be traced either 
to Met. or to Her., and from Her. we have a direct quota- 
tion. One allusion only, to Dido and Anna, is of Vergilian 
origin. There is no instance of nature-myth, and the 
greater divinities receive but scanty attention. There is 
nothing either in substance or in treatment to prevent one 
from assigning the play to about the same period as Merch., 
in which Ovidian influence is also very strong. 

Pericles. 

If we except frequent references to Diana, occasioned by 
the machinery of the play, we find in Per, 25 instances of 
mythological allusion, of which 15 are in the portion of 
the drama which may safely be assigned to Shakespeare 
(the last three acts, with the exception of the brothel scenes 
in Act 4). We are immediately impressed by the total 
absence of Ovidian allusion in the authentic portion ; while 
a mention of the. Harpies is the only trace of Vergilian 
influence. As in Cymb. and Wint., the greater divinities 
are often mentioned, and nature-myth is frequent. Turning 
to the spurious portions, we find a considerable Ovidian 
influence — the garden of the Hesperides, Jove as a type of 
wantonness, and Priapus, Cupid is also mentioned. 

Henry VIII. 

The mythology of H8 is confined to a charming song of 
twelve lines about Orpheus and his lute, and a reference to 
the Phoenix, 



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